David Cordingly, an engaging, self-exclaimed pirate expert, gives a vivid history of what it was like to live during the height of Atlantic piracy. Cordingly tells us who became pirates, what they wore, and how they were armed among many other detailed accounts of every day life both on land and at sea. Pirates, says the author, were attracted by the lure of plunder and the desire for an easy life.” The author explains that these men and women were not the fantasized heroes of today’s popular culture, but ruthless thieves, murderers, and lawbreakers. Famous pirates from widely known as well as unfamiliar stories are depicted. The legends and histories of Sir Francis Drake, Harry Morgan, Edward Teach or Blackbeard and Captain Kidd are included to pay dues to these most popularly known buccaneers’ adventurous tales. I observed throughout his book that although some of the stories are quite fantastic, David Cordingly stressed that the life of pirates and buccaneers during the 16th and 17th centuries was not as dazzling and romanticized as popular culture would …show more content…
More often than not, according to Cordingly, privateering took place in a time of war between the two warring sides to inflict damage to the other side without actually sending government forces. These government-backed “pirates” were outfitted sea raiders whose priority was to plunder commercial vessels flying the flag of declared enemies. Cordingly explains that the line between piracy and privateering was easily crossed, and many acts of piracy throughout the Atlantic and in the Caribbean were committed under false licenses. This led to pirates living as criminal opportunists, and highly organized and dangerous ones at that. This is evident when David Cordingly tells of the five hundred men who followed Welsh buccaneer, Henry Morgan, in an “attack on the Spanish treasure port of Portobello in