Piracy History

Hard Aground brings together three intertwined stories documenting the US Navy's strategic and materiel evolution from the end of Civil War through the First World War. The first story focuses on the reconstruction of the US Navy following the swift and near-total dismantling of the Union Navy infrastructure after the Civil War. Jampoler argues that the federal government discovered that the fleet requested by the navy, and paid for by Congress, was the wrong fleet.

Following the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) a decade-long wave of sea-robbery plagued the Atlantic rim—often glamorized as the "Golden Age of Piracy". Boston-based laborer, Edward Low, left his mark on pirate history as the most vicious and sadistic raider of them all.

In this original and meticulously researched narrative history, Gareth Russell utilises the sinking of the Titanic as a prism through which to look at the end of the Edwardian era and the seismic shift of modernity the 1910s have come to mark in the West. The Darksome Bounds of a Failing World focuses on the symbolism of the Titanic as the floating symbol of Anglo-American success, its clientele an apt illustration of the limitless - technological, financial - possibilities of its time.

On 21 November 1915, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, finally succumbed to the crushing ice. Its crew watched in silence as the stern rose twenty feet in the air and then, it was gone. The miraculous escape and survival of all twenty-eight men on board have entered legend. And yet, the iconic ship that bore them to the brink of the Antarctic was considered forever lost. A century later, an audacious plan to locate the ship was hatched. The Ship Beneath the Ice gives a blow-by-blow account of the two epic expeditions to find the Endurance.

Set sail on a thrilling voyage into the mysterious and treacherous world of the notorious pirate, Blackbeard, in this riveting biography that unveils the man behind the legend. In Blackbeard, the high seas come alive as we chart the tumultuous life of Edward Teach, the infamous pirate who struck fear into the hearts of sailors and coastal communities alike.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Endeavour, written by Peter Moore, read by Ric Jerrom. An inventive biography of one of the most famous ships of all time - from the oak tree it was made from to its last voyage in the American War of Independence. No-one has ever told Endeavour’s complete story before. Peter Moore sets out to explore the different lives of this remarkable ship, from the acorn that grew into the oak that made her to her rich and complex legacy.

Jeremy Black takes the listener through its evolution to becoming one of the most important oceans in the world. He discusses the importance of the Atlantic in relation to world history as well as addressing topics such as those bravest to attempt to cross the ocean before Columbus, the beginnings of slavery from 1400-1600, the struggle for control between empires in the 1600s, the way technology adapted with steamships to telegraph cables, the battle of the Falkland and the Cold War.

Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of freedom. But at the root of this mythology is a rich history of pirate societies—vibrant, imaginative experiments in self-governance and alternative social formations at the edges of European empire. David Graeber explores how the proto-democratic, even libertarian practices of the Zana-Malata—an ethnic group made up of mixed descendants of pirates who settled on Madagascar at the beginning of the eighteenth century—came to shape the Enlightenment project.

Ruim vier eeuwen geleden zwermden Nederlandse schepen en hun bemanningen uit over de wereldzeeën. Ze voeren naar het noorden, over de Atlantische Oceaan naar het westen en rond Kaap Hoorn en voorbij Kaap de Goede Hoop naar Azië. Ze dreven handel, gingen de strijd aan met Europese concurrenten, onderwierpen goed- of kwaadschiks inheemse volken en stichtten nederzettingen en koloniën. Het vervoer van goederen en mensen via het water was in veel opzichten bepalend voor de ontwikkeling van scheepstypen, navigatiemiddelen en handelsnetwerken.

This is the extraordinary story of the mutiny aboard the frigate HMS Hermione in 1797 (eight years after the mutiny on the Bounty) - the bloodiest mutiny ever suffered by the Royal Navy, which led to the extradition from America, and the hanging by the British, of the martyred sailor Jonathan Robbins. This event plunged the two-decades-old American Republic into a constitutional crisis and powerfully contributed to the outcome of the US presidential election of 1800.

Calais-born Olivier Le Vasseur aka La Buse is infamous for his 1721 attack on a Portuguese ship docked at Bourbon (modern day Réunion), the island where he eventually met his fate on the gallows in 1730. The raid yielded one of the most spectacular treasure hauls in the recorded history of piracy. The value of the plunder taken - and a fabled incident that occurred on the day La Buse was hanged - have led to enduring claims about the supposed buried treasure of this ill-fated pirate. The recorded facts of Le Vasseur’s life – and their importance in debunking the legend- are the subject...

When Campbell & Clark, Scottish merchants based in India, dispatched an Indian ship hurriedly renamed the Sydney Cove to the colony of NSW in 1797, they were hoping to make their fortune. The ship's 'speculative' cargo included all kinds of products to entice the new colony's inhabitants, including 7,000 gallons of rum intended to be sold to the Rum Corp. But when the ship went down north of Van Diemen's Land, cargo master William Campbell and 16 other crew members decided to walk the 600 miles to Sydney Town to get help and rescue crew and cargo.

Using contemporary sources, Nigel Cawthorne turns the spotlight on the reality of pirate life, revealing the truth behind the legends. It gives us an insight into infamous the men and women who plundered ship and shore, including Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, and Mary Read. We learn of the hazy distinction between pirates and state-approved privateers who were used to maintain empire, as well as the Port Royal pirate base in Jamaica—known as the "wickedest city in the world".

The war of 1812–1815 was a bloody confrontation that tore through the American frontier, the British colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, and parts of the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. The conflict saw British, American, and First Nations forces clash, and in the process, shape the future of North American history. Carl Benn explains what led to America's decision to take up arms against Great Britain and assesses the three terrible years of fighting that followed on land and sea, where battles such as Lake Erie and Lake Champlain launched American naval traditions.

It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is as old as recorded music itself. In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United States.

On July 4, 1861, the schooner S. J. Waring set sail from New York on a routine voyage to South America. Seventeen days later it limped back into New York's harbor with the ship's black cook and steward at the helm. While the story of that ill-fated voyage is one of the most harrowing tales of captivity and survival on the high seas, it has been tragically lost to history. Now reclaiming William Tillman as the American hero he deserves to be, historian Brian McGinty takes listeners on a courageous journey.

On May 29, 1914, after a collision in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Empress of Ireland sank in minutes, taking 1,012 passengers and crew to their deaths. The disaster shocked the world but then was forgotten with the torpedoing of the Lusitania and the engulfing cataclysm of World War I. Now, in Dark Descent, acclaimed author and diver Kevin McMurray revives the story of this forgotten maritime catastrophe.

In 1906, Britain's grip on the world was unassailable. Its navy ruled the seas, and its trade empire spanned the globe. But in the small port town of Tuticorin, a lawyer named V.O. Chidambaram Pillai—known to the world as VOC—had a revolutionary idea that would challenge the might of the empire itself. VOC's plan was audacious: to launch the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, a venture that would compete head-on with the British India Steam Navigation Company, the shipping giant that controlled the region.

In the early hours of 15 April 1912, after the majestic liner Titanic had split apart and the 1,500 men, women and children struggled to stay alive in the freezing Atlantic, the sea was alive with the sound of screaming. Then, as the ship sank to the ocean floor and the passengers slowly died from hypothermia, a deathly silence settled over the sea. Yet the echoes of that night reverberated through the lives of each of the 705 survivors. Shadow of the Titanic tells the extraordinary stories of some of those who survived.

A cento anni di distanza dalla fatale collisione, Massimo Polidoro ricostruisce la vicenda del Titanic in un racconto corale che intreccia le storie di ufficiali e passeggeri, naufraghi e soccorritori, scienziati e avventurieri. Attraverso gli occhi dei protagonisti assisteremo all'intero svolgimento di una storia intramontabile. Saremo accolti a bordo. Visiteremo la nave e i suoi meravigliosi saloni. Incontreremo i personaggi più interessanti. Vivremo le emozioni della traversata.