The pirate nests and the rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740

摘要

Piracy remains one of the most exciting maritime topics, and it continues to generate considerable popular interest. It has also received significant attention from historians in recent years, as scholars from a range of backgrounds have attempted to revise some of the more enduring ideas about pirates and buccaneers. Much has been written about the relationship between pirates and society (such as Margarette Lincoln's British pirates and society, 1680-1730) and how the state reacted to these criminals (such as Marcus Rediker's Villains of all nations: Atlantic pirates in the golden age and Robert C. Ritchie's Captain Kidd and the war against the pirates). Mark Hanna has now added a new treasure to the historiography with his new book The pirate nests and the rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740. Hanna's aim is to provide a new history of piracy by connecting the sea marauders to imperial development during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and pushes against the traditional view of the swashbuckling pirate at sea. Instead, he argues that pirates played an important role on land, bringing goods into port towns and, as a result, helped diffuse communities flourish. They helped rather than hindered commercial expansion, and in doing so played a direct role in the growth of the British Empire.