Piracy: The Complete History

368 pp. When we think of pirates we conjure up images of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, or even fictional pirates such as Long John Silver, Captain Hook and Captain Jack Sparrow. These historical characters all hailed from one period. Known as "The Golden Age of Piracy", this period only lasted around a quarter of a century - from around 1700 until 1725. However, piracy has been around a lot longer than that. In fact ever since people started venturing onto the sea, others were waiting to waylay them.