The Reluctant Gentleman of Crime There is something faintly theatrical about Captain John Phillips. Not quite as...
Pirates
The Golden Age of Piracy, spanning roughly from the 1650s to the 1730s, was marked by a surge in maritime raiding across the Atlantic and the Caribbean. This period saw the rise of infamous figures such as Edward Teach, Henry Every and Bartholomew Roberts, operating at a time when empires were expanding and naval power was in flux. Pirates targeted merchant shipping routes, often exploiting colonial rivalries and weak enforcement. While romanticised in later fiction, piracy in this era was brutal, opportunistic and shaped by the politics and economics of empire, trade and war. It left a complex and lasting historical legacy.
I have a soft spot for Howell Davis. Perhaps it is because he was Welsh, which means...
I have spent years reading about kings, rebels and reformers. Pirates are rarely afforded such seriousness. Edward...
Francis Spriggs sits in that crowded corner of pirate history reserved for men who were dangerous, capable,...
George Lowther is not one of piracy’s grand myth-makers. He did not retire rich, found a pirate...
Pirate flags were never just spooky decoration. They were tools of psychological warfare, fast communication, and reputation...
There are pirates who blaze brightly and briefly, and then there are the ones who linger awkwardly...
Christopher Myngs is known to history as both a hero and menace, which is often where the...
Laurens de Graaf has a habit of pulling the reader straight into warm, treacherous waters where loyalties...
Michel le Basque exists in a corner of pirate history where the evidence is thin, the rumours...