Under the Black Flag

I finished reading Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. I heard about this book on the NPR Books Podcast.

Written by a British naval historian who is considered one of the leading authorities on pirates, the book takes a factual look at the life of pirates. The book focuses largely on the pirates active in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Coast in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

The book looks a lot at the differences between how pirates have been portrayed in books, movies and plays over the last three hundred years and real life. Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island is used as an example throughout the book. I am going to add this book to my list of things to read which now includes biographies of JFK, J. Edgar Hoover and Castro and Treasure Island.

The book was an interesting read, but not a book that I strongly recommend.