Book Review by James H Thomas on Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos, The Pirate Next Door: The Untold Story of Eighteenth Century Pirates’ Wives, Families and Communities (Carolina Academic Press: Durham, North Carolina, 2017), 147pp. £11-12 (Kindle and Paperback). This is a slim volume which promises much, delving ‘into the inner lives of pirates, focusing on their […]
Why Maritime History Matters Maritime history can be broadly defined as the study of humanity and its relationship to the seas and oceans of the world in the past. It is a huge topic with tendrils creeping into many nooks and crannies of other, seemingly far removed, branches of the historian’s craft. Its gambit includes […]
Pirates have many names—freebooters, brethren of the coast, members of the company, buccaneers. Throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, thousands of pirates stalked the seas, attacking merchant vessels trading in the West Indies, West Africa, and North America. This period of violence and thievery has been well documented and immortalized as the ‘Golden […]
