Pirates and Privateers
The History of Maritime Piracy

Cindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P.O. Box 425, Keller, TX  76244-0425

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Books for Adults - Nonfiction

Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army,
the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe that Ended the Outlaws’ Bloody Reign
By Stephan Talty
Crown, 2007, ISBN 978-0-307-23660-9, US $24.95, CAN $30.00

From the return of the first Englishman to see Spain’s colonies in the New World to the earthquake and tidal wave that destroyed Port Royal, Stephan Talty journeys back to the seventeenth century and the world of the buccaneers. As readers experience the battles to gain riches and the struggles to survive, they meet the likes of Henry Morgan, L’Olonnais, Mary Carleton, Sir Thomas Modyford, Don Agustín de Bracamonte, Don Alonzo de Campos y Espinosa, and Manuel Rivera Pardal who each played a role in the battle to gain control of America. It is also a tale of a notorious pirate haven, whose destruction was seen as fit punishment for being the Sodom and Gomorrah of the New World.

Throughout this captivating account, the author views the events through the eyes of all participants. In doing so, he points out aspects of the situation, such as Spain’s handicaps in successfully defending her territories against the pirates, that are rarely explained so succinctly. His account goes far beyond the focus of Morgan’s raids to show the reader a true picture of what was happening in Spain and England and how this famous privateer’s achievements affected both governments.

I found only one glaring error near the end of the book. The fates of Anne Bonny and Mary Read were reversed. Since this minor lapse has nothing to do with the lively account of the rise and fall of the Port Royal privateers, readers are well paid for spending their hard-won doubloons on this intriguing tale of piratical history when villains became heroes and defenders, and only later found themselves hated enemies once prosperity and victory came to English lands in the Caribbean.

Book Review Copyright ©2008 Cindy Vallar

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