New Books In Military History

A masterful narrative history of the dangerous lives of pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, revealing their unique impact on colonialism and empire. The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one historical moment: the period from the 1660s to the 1730s, the so-called "golden age of piracy." A groundbreaking history of pirates, Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy (Pegasus Books, 2024) combines narrative adventure with deeply researched analysis, engrossing readers in the rise of piracy in the later seventeenth century, the debates about piracy in contemporary law and popular media, as well as the imperial efforts to suppress piracy in the early eighteenth century. The Caribbean and American colonies of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands—where piracy surged across these decades—are the main thea