ebooks Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly in History

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great Pirate Book and Easy to EnjoyBy Desert LambUnder The Black Flag is an easy to read book with smooth transitions between chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific pirate topic that is explained in an easy to understand way; without boring the reader with unnecessary details. Mr. Cordingly does a wonderful job at transporting the reader back to the gold age of piracy. The author explains the life of these characters by exploring with historic events all the way from how a person decided to become a pirate to how piracy was brought to an end. This book covers famous pirates such Kidd and Blackbeard; but only enough to provide a general understanding of these characters and this is great for a reader like me - who is new to the topic. I was pleasantly surprised to learn certain details about pirates that I thought had been made up by Hollywood; but now I feel I can enjoy pirate movies and shows better. Under the Black Flag answered a lot of questions I had about pirates and their lifestyle and now I am more fascinated by them than before reading the book. I strongly recommend this book if you have any interest whatsoever in the topic.3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Great book; but....By RustyI was hoping this would be more factual (I got it to help with research with a period piece I'm writing). The first chapter is more about the media written pirate and contrasting it to the reality. But it fails to give much of any real information. I'm about halfway done and the chapters carry more as you go on. If you're looking for a wide view history then this book is good. If you're looking for just facts you should make this one your second choice. His writing though is fast paced and intriguing. Definitely a good read no matter what.10 of 12 people found the following review helpful. Educational But With One or Two IssuesBy David BurrWhile Cordingly is clearly an excellent writer; there are a couple of things with which I struggled here. The primary one is at least a bit objective; while I am admittedly subjective in the second. First- If you read this book you get the distinct impression that each chapter was written independently; without consideration that they would be compiled into a book. The amount of redundancy tells us all we need to know about that. If the work was planned as a whole; the same facts would not surface 6-8 times.Secondly; you really have to be infected with a form of pirate-mania to want to hear endless details about every "important?" pirate book; play; or movie ever made. For me; that was just over the top. Who cares about detailed plot lines; who the actors were; and endless minutia? To be fair; the descriptions of the book; as well as the reference to "The Romance" in the title; indicates that we have not been duped - this subject would be part of the text. Personally I had no use for it. But of course since each chapter is essentially its own self-contained college term paper; not having been built on a previous one in any great sense; you can just skip ahead. Or at least go to a place where it stops talking about the media-created "pirates".These not-so-small nits aside; you really do learn; via the authors research of public records; what pirates were all about. The book is an easy read. It would be great to get into modern-day piracy; but that would be another book because there is no way to dovetail that with this work that describes what might be called the hey-day of piracy..