Pirates: The Golden Age of Piracy

Pirates dominate movie box office profits, serve as theme park entertainment, and occupy a place in popular culture that has long outlasted the era when they ruled the seas. Modern audiences-safe from the pistols and cutlasses of the men who sailed the Caribbean, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans to prey upon ships and seize their cargo-may find it difficult to reconcile the glamor of Captain Jack Sparrow with the brutal reality of real pirates. These men killed without conscience, kidnapped inno...