Pirates? The Politics of Plunder, 1550-1650 (Early Modern Literature in History)
'Pirates' hold enormous popular appeal as swashbuckling rogues performing feats of daring on high seas. Yet 'pirates' possess deeper meanings as they undertake a rich variety of cultural work: as allegories of religious and political issues; as actors in the theatre of empire; in terms of gendered behaviour, national, legal and racial identitites. Even the application of the term itself is contested since one person's 'pirate' is another 'privateer'. The new, inter-disciplinary essays in this collection work together to show how various, and how important, were the figures of the 'pirate', the 'corsair', the 'buccaneer' and the 'privateer' in the years 1550-1650. This period is one of the most lively in maritime history as it marks the beginning of the Age of Empire when, for example, the English nation seriously attempted, for the first time, to express ambitions for an empire to rival that of Spain and Portugal in the West and the Ottomans in the East. The discussions of the politics of plunder in this book by noted historians, lawyers, and literary scholars, provide an illuminating, previously neglected window on the cultural meanings of 'pirates' at the start of the Age of Empire.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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Fiction · Nonfiction
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Balanced tone · Measured pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
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- ISBN-13
- 978-0-2300-0327-9
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL10193830M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Fiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- What does the central character want, and what do they misunderstand about that desire?
- Which detail or relationship changes how you interpret the story?
- What feeling or question does the book leave with you after the plot moves on?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
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