Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates

To be read alongside thrilling histories by Nathaniel Philbrick, Hampton Sides, and Rinker Buck, Black Flags, Blue Waters vividly reanimates the "Golden Age" of piracy in the Americas-- spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s--when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. "Deftly blending scholarship and drama" (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, not to mention in their own financial interest, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them towering Blackbeard, illfated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a "gripping" (BookPage) and "stirring history that reads like a novel" (Stephen Puleo).