Stephan
Talty
Bought
this because i thought it might be a popular history of pirates that
would do as a gift for JAG; in fact, it's a bit more, and i greatly
enjoyed it myself. I had never
before fully realised the difference between men such as Henry Morgan
and the more notorious pirates of the next century such as Captain
Kidd and Blackbeard. I knew that Morgan was the successor of such as
Drake, privateers attacking the enemies of their country with the
license of the monarch; that is, i knew it in theory, assuming that
in practice Morgan was qualitatively different. The huge leap of
differentiation, however, seems to be between the latter generation
of privateers and the Kidds and Teaches of still later, men who had
absolutely no legal justification for their actions. This book is
only about Morgan's generation, so neither the latter men nor the
former enter it; Morgan, however, is clearly a man who, to a certain
extent, respects the laws of his country, and fights against, however
bloodily and at whatever human cost, those to whom he is directed. I
have learned from this book, about buccaneers, about the organisation
of the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean, or North, Sea, about Morgan's
contemporaries. Thus it is a success for me, because i am always
willing to go back to an author who has taught me.
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