Pirates: Adventurers of the High Seas (1995) By David F. Marley
 
In the golden age of European expansion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, impoverished young men sought fortune and adventure overseas. The New World colonies, rich with trade and material wealth, were essentially self-governing states and the general lawlessness prevailing gave rise to the pirate: answerable to no law other than that laid down by their own hard-bitten leaders. For decades the great pirate fleets roamed the oceans unchecked, periodically raiding local ports and towns with landing parties hundreds strong. From the Spanish Main to the Red Sea and Indian coastlines, no colonist or sailor could feel safe. This was the Great Age of Piracy.

This book presents the real story behind the myths of pirates as depicted by film and romantic novel - an illustrated study of the reasons for the rise and proliferation of pirates and the history of the buccaneers of this Great Age, from the late sixteenth century into the nineteenth century, in the main area of their raids - the Caribbean.

Attracted to this New World by the huge wealth of the Spanish Empire, the first free-loaders were operating to private commissions. These were often given by Spain's trading rivals who were keen to see Spanish trade attacked and at the same time increase their own links with this rich new market. Increasingly, however, pirates attracted and encouraged their own development and with a plentiful supply of poor men, for whom even the misery of life aboard a pirate ship was better than their own immediate prospects, cut-throat leaders were able to roam the seas at will.

This book, written by prize-winning pirate authority David F. Marley, reveals how pirates were able to dominate the Caribbean and beyond for so long.
 
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
160 Pages
In Good Condition