The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

Woodard’s story is indeed entertaining, but over the course of some 400 pages the repetitive narrative of individual heists and on-shore shenanigans tends to blend together into an overly-long story. Clearly, the recipe for a compelling story is contained in the reality of these pirates, and I was intrigued to learn more about them and the time period in which they operated. The band, individually and at times collectively, wreaked havoc all along the coasts of Caribbean islands and the Atlantic seaboard from Charleston to Boston. They were eventually brought to bay by Woodes Rogers in the latter part of the second decade of the eighteenth century. The book alleges to tell the real story of the celebrated pirates of the Caribbean, a ragtag group of colorful outlaws who operated out of a base in the Bahamas in the early 1700s and terrorized Atlantic shipping and stood almost unopposed for the better part of two decades. As Republic of Pirates (released in 2008) has garnered considerable praise and is credited with inspiring at least two television dramas (“Crossbones” and “The Lost Pirate Kingdom”) I thought I would listen to an audiobook version during my travels. A correspondent for various newspapers and magazines, he is probably best known for his books such as Ocean’s End: Travel Through Endangered Seas, The Lobster Coast, and American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Woodard is a nationally-recognized journalist and author.

Here to explain the rise and fall of these storied buccaneers and their times in their actuality is Colin Woodard with The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. That age was quickly put to an end by authorities after a brief heyday of only a few decades.

The common denominator among the lot, and something few at first realize, is that most of those we have likely heard of lived and worked in a relatively short period of time in the early eighteenth century known by historians of the subject as a sort of “golden age” of piracy. Swaggering, larger than life, figures surrounded by more myth than fact, their names-including Blackbeard, Black Sam Bellamy, Charles Vane, and Anne Bonny-are still familiar to many today centuries after their infamous and haphazardly documented deeds. Few historians, indeed few people among the general public, are not at least somewhat intrigued by the stories of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean.

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard