15 February, 2013

Aaarrgh, and me parrot!



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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