I think that people have a preconceived notion of what a pirate is. In childhood, we have Captain Hook, dressed in his ruffled shirt and large hat looking quite fancy. We have the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. We have Hook from Once Upon A Time. I have certainly been guilty of thinking pirates were leather pants and frilly shirt wearing, long beard having, large hat owners. As a historian, I have learned a good deal about the Somalian pirates, but very little about pirating in the Golden Age of Piracy. This particular book covers a period of two years, beginning in 1680, when a large group of pirates gathered in the Caribbean to formulate a massive raiding extravaganza on the Pacific coast. I had no clue about any of this until reading this book.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I liked that it read like an adventure novel. A lot of people are turned off by nonfiction because they think that history cannot be exciting and must always be dry and boring, but the author of this book did a great job in keeping the interest of the reader. I liked how he made the pirates in the book come back to life when relating their adventures and experiences. The research was well done, and I learned a great deal. I am really glad that I took a chance on this book. I would highly recommend it for people who are curious about pirates. It was a lot more interesting than the couple of other pirate books I have read in the past.