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Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. By Marcus Rediker. (Boston: Beacon, 2004. 240 pp. $24.00, ISBN 0-80705024-5.)
Piracy, according to this author, was more about liberty, brotherhood, and equality than robbery, violence, and murder. Indeed, in Marcus Rediker's eyes, pirates were almost early modern democratic socialists. Their opponents were the ones who made them engage in robbery, violence, and murder. Piracy was also very narrowly focused about the 1710s and 1720s and the generation of infamous, seafaring thieves that underlies all modern, romanticized images of pirates. The author's own image of them is more romantic than he thinks, but he still knows a great deal about pirates and has many interesting, useful, and insightful things to say about...