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The Ocean Is a Wilderness: Atlantic Piracy and the Limits of State Authority 1688-1856 , By Chet Guy . Boston : University of Massachusetts Press , 2014. Pp. xx, 157. $80.00, cloth; $22.95, paper.
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Ancient to Modern Europe
The word pirate encompasses a wide variety of ancient and modern maritime predators, from the Elizabethan "privateers" who preyed on sixteenth-century Spanish shipping, to Barbary corsairs, to modern Somali hijackers. In modern popular imagination, the term most vividly brings to mind the Anglo-American freebooters who flourished in the decade or so that followed the end of the War of Spanish Succession (1713). Naval historians are in virtually unanimous agreement that outright piracy of this sort was effectively eradicated in the Atlantic by 1726, and remained rare thereafter until a brief resurgence in the 1820s. Commerce raiding was certainly widespread during wartime, but it was carried out by naval vessels and by private armed vessels ("privateers") licensed by belligerent governments to prey on enemy merchant shipping.
In this short book, Guy Chet challenges this received wisdom, arguing that state campaigns against piracy were actually ineffective, and that piracy remained common throughout the eighteenth century both during peace and wartime. Modern historians, he argues, have been misled by court records, anti-piracy statutes, and official accounts that overstated the authority and jurisdiction of the state, into accepting a distinction between pirates and privateers that reflected official ideology but was irrelevant to contemporaries. This is a bold argument that, if accepted, would necessitate a reinterpretation of much of eighteenth-century naval history.
To support his claims, Chet leans heavily on marine insurance rates, arguing that peacetime premiums on Atlantic voyages remained relatively stable between 1650 and 1750 rather than declining due to a reduced risk of piracy. Unfortunately the available evidence on insurance rates is quite sparse, and the data are estimates drawn from a variety of sources for various routes at various times, during both peace and wartime....