Charles Johnson's General history of the pyrates and global commerce /
"Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates, first published in 1724, is a major source for our understanding of piracy at the end of the so-called Golden Age of Pirates (1680-1730), and also a fascinating text in its own right. This first comprehensive study of General History reads...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Lewisburg, Pennsylvania :
Bucknell University Press,
[2025]
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| Series: | Transits (Bucknell University)
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates, first published in 1724, is a major source for our understanding of piracy at the end of the so-called Golden Age of Pirates (1680-1730), and also a fascinating text in its own right. This first comprehensive study of General History reads this multi-faceted volume within the context of commerce, colonialism, slavery, and law in the 1720s, suggesting that pirates-both fictional and historical-became symbolic of the anxieties surrounding global trade in this period. It argues that General History presents pirates on one hand as monsters, "the enemy of all humanity," fearful figures capable of destroying all commerce. At the same time, successful pirates, like successful merchants, were rapacious, crafty, opportunistic, and, when necessary, ruthless: all qualities of great men. General History therefore suggests that pirates, like global merchants, were two sides of the same blood-spattered coin, circulating in the morally-ambiguous world of global commerce"-- |
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| Physical Description: | xv, 178 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages165-171) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781684485543 9781684485536 1684485533 1684485541 |