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

Ritchie demonstrates that even dashing scoundrels were slaves to economics in this lively history of piracy. He focuses on the shadowy figure of William Kidd, whose career in the late 17th century swept him from the Caribbean to New York, to London, to the Indian Ocean before he ended in Newgate prison and on the gallows.

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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.

About this edition

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