Captain Kidd: And the War Against the Pirates - Hardcover

Ritchie, C.Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0760708401 ISBN 13: 9780760708408

Publisher: Barnes & Noble Inc, 1998

Synopsis

Political perspective of Captain Kidd. Not a pirates tale. A detailed record of a pirate voyage.

About this title

Review

Fascinating...Captain Kidd emerges as a very real historical person, the victim of shifts in English and colonial politics, and changes in mercantile, imperial and legal attitudes...Ritchie...has sorted out the conflicting evidence in a masterful way.

ÝA¨ fascinating true story--not of moonlit beaches and buried treasure but of political intrigue and complicated business deal-making, not of swashbucklers on the high seas but of men who went to sea to escape a stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed...ÝRitchie¨ makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy. -- Jim Haskins "New York Times Book Review"

conflicting evidence in a masterful way.

especially the economic events that shaped piracy in its age of transition..."Captain Kidd" is a first-rate book.

stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed...[Ritchie] makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy.

The wealth of descriptive detail, combined with attention to a broad canvas of world politics, transports the reader into the world of the seventeenth century sea-breathren in an unusually forceful way...A rollicking, roistering adventure which will make...compulsive reading.

[A] fascinating true story--not of moonlit beaches and buried treasure but of political intrigue and complicated business deal-making, not of swashbucklers on the high seas but of men who went to sea to escape a stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed...[Ritchie] makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy.--Jim Haskins "New York Times Book Review "

The most detailed record I have ever seen of a pirate voyage, with its origins and aftermath; I doubt if there is another like it. [Ritchie] has also placed it in its historic context, describing the political, and especially the economic events that shaped piracy in its age of transition...Captain Kidd is a first-rate book.--George MacDonald Fraser "Washington Post "

About the Author

Robert C. Ritchie is Professor of History, University of California at San Diego.

Edition details

• Publisher: Barnes & Noble Inc
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0760708401
• ISBN 13: 9780760708408
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 306