Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810-1830

摘要

McCarthy (The Boydell Press, Suffolk, UK, 2013, 184pp, tables, notes, biblio, index, isbn 978-1-84383-861-6; $115hc) Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810-1830 is a scholarly exegesis for which Matthew McCarthy won the British Commission for Maritime History/Boydell & Brewer prize for best doctoral thesis in maritime history (University of Hull, 2011). The scope of this study examines privateering and piracy during the Spanish American revolutions "from a British perspective." McCarthy opens with a succinct explanation of the complex domestic and international political scene that shaped British policy toward privateering and piracy in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Revolutions in Spanish colonies created commercial and military opportunities for Great Britain that required careful attention to internal and external pressures for policies to generate maximum returns at minimum costs.