VILLAINS OF ALL NATIONS (BEACON PRESS) (HB)

This history shows, from the bottom up, how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew —which included cross-dressing women, people of colour, and the “outcasts of all nations"—are far more compelling than contemporary myth.