Ocean Piracy

From the author of the acclaimed The Great Sea, David Abulafia's new book guides listeners along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans - the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian - which together comprise the majority of the earth's water and cover over half of its surface. These waterways carried goods, plants, livestock, and, of course, people across vast expanses, transforming and ultimately linking irrevocably the economies and cultures of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

During the early twentieth century, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women, whose lives were changed forever by their journeys between the Old World and the New. Some traveled for leisure, some for work; others to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. They were celebrities, migrants and millionaires, refugees, aristocrats and crew members whose stories have mostly remained untold—until now.

When the crew of the Mobius takes on passenger Bryce Brisson to make some easy money, they find themselves caught up in his business dealings with Tanny's estranged family: the Rucker Syndicate. On top of that, Tanny has exhausted her supply of the drugs she needs to keep up her enhanced marine physiology. But will Carl double-cross family to make his payday or dive headlong into a trap that wasn't meant for him? If he plays this wrong, he risks making enemies of the most ruthless gangsters on Mars.

David L. Mearns has discovered some of the world's most fascinating and elusive shipwrecks. The Shipwreck Hunter chronicles his most intriguing finds. It describes the extraordinary techniques used, the detailed research, and mid-ocean stamina and courage required to find a wreck thousands of feet beneath the sea, plus the moving human stories that lie behind each of these oceanic tragedies. Combining the adventuring derring-do of Indiana Jones with the precision of a scientist, The Shipwreck Hunter opens an illuminating porthole into the shadowy depths of the ocean.

A pilgrim ship screams under cannon fire in the Arabian Sea. In a ruined Bahamian fort, a ragged assembly raises hands to vote. Between those moments lies the true story of the Golden Age of Piracy: a world where money, law, and fear shaped ruthless violence and unexpected democracies at sea. The Golden Age of Piracy rips past the clichés to reveal the real lives of pirates and privateers from Port Royal to Madagascar. It shows how war-born sailors turned to plunder when peace cut their pay, how letters of marque turned theft into property, and how crews wrote their own shipboard ...

From the dawn of civilization, humanity has been drawn to the water, but we often forget that the world's waterways are not always our allies. This book embarks on a global journey to the twenty most perilous bodies of water on Earth, exploring places where the simple act of being on the water is a high-stakes gamble. It is an unflinching examination of the planet's most hostile aquatic environments. Discover the raw, untamed power of nature, from the colossal rapids of the Congo River's Gates of Hell to the savage, unpredictable waves of the Bay of Biscay. Venture into the Amazon, a liquid...

Calais-born Olivier Le Vasseur aka La Buse is infamous for his 1721 attack on a Portuguese ship docked at Bourbon (modern day Réunion), the island where he eventually met his fate on the gallows in 1730. The raid yielded one of the most spectacular treasure hauls in the recorded history of piracy. The value of the plunder taken - and a fabled incident that occurred on the day La Buse was hanged - have led to enduring claims about the supposed buried treasure of this ill-fated pirate. The recorded facts of Le Vasseur’s life – and their importance in debunking the legend- are the subject...

In the golden age of piracy, roughly the early 1700s, there was the romance of piracy. Blood, thrilling, even, weirdly romanticized over time. This tale is not about them. It is about Reece Bonny Roberts who is a direct, but far down the line descendent that gets caught up in the hunt for treasure. She finds the right partner, nearly a pirate’s look on his own, and together, they make it a point to hunt down her ancestor’s treasure So, why on earth would anyone deposit gold, silver and jewels at the bottom of a sea cylinder, so far down, they will never see it again? It is the hunt, the...

Former US Navy officer Colin Worth and pirate captain Elizabeth Parker, after a grueling campaign in the Caribbean against the English forces fighting the Americans during the War of 1812, have sailed around the southern tip of South America, seeking a peaceful home somewhere in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. They quickly discover, though, that life in the 'peaceful' ocean is just as chaotic and dangerous as it had been in the islands. From Tahiti to Australia, and then on to China, which is suffering under the heels of western forces who have brought the dreaded drug opium to the ...

Cuando la tripulación del Mobius acepta como pasajero a Bryce Brisson para ganar dinero fácil, se ve inmersa en sus negocios con la enemistada familia de Tanny: la Familia Rucker. Y además, Tanny ha agotado el suministro de drogas que necesita para mantener su fisiología mejorada de marine. ¿Traicionará Carl a la familia para conservar su paga, o se lanzará de cabeza a una trampa que no estaba diseñada para él? Si juega mal sus cartas, se arriesga a enemistarse con los gánsteres más despiadados de Marte.

Loin des légendes et des fantasmes, la première véritable histoire de la piraterie. Barbe-Noire est sans doute le plus illustre, Anne Bonny la plus féminine et Jack Sparrow le plus attirant (et surtout le moins réel !), mais que sait-on véritablement des pirates, corsaires et flibustiers ? S'il est certain que les pilleurs des mers ont régné sur les Caraïbes au XVIIIe siècle, on ne peut toutefois pas résumer leur histoire à ce truisme.

Es gilt als unberechenbar und zugleich als Sehnsuchtsort: das Meer. Die unendliche Weite, die Schönheit, aber auch die Gefahren, die die Hohe See birgt, faszinieren Abenteurer und Autoren seit Jahrhunderten. Doch zusehends gefährden Überfischung und Umweltverschmutzung das Meer als Lebensraum und als Ressource für den Menschen. Der mit dem Pulitzer-Preis ausgezeichnete amerikanische Journalist Ian Urbina spürt einerseits dieser Faszination nach und deckt andererseits Missstände auf, wie moderne Sklaverei auf Fischerbooten oder das Aussetzen blinder Passagiere auf hoher See.

This book tells the true stories of mariners who became marauders, attacking, hiding, recruiting and disputing in and around Mauritius in the 17th and 18th centuries. Pirates stopped here to rest their crews, provision their ships, offload their captives, and occasionally to maroon their own men. It is also the location for the Christmas Day shipwreck and the first official salvage operation of a pirate ship in history. Read the real, authenticated accounts of pirates like John Bowen and Olivier La Buse who once haunted these shores.

The ocean shapes our history. From the birth of humanity, oceans have separated and connected cultures. They have entranced and terrified generations. And they have shaped history in critical ways. Maritime trade. Naval warfare. Ocean exploration. Across the centuries, the ocean became a site for scientific advances and a highway for globalization. The Ocean Blue explores the way seas influence human history, from the ancient world to today.