This new account explores the most notorious pirates in history and how their rise and fall can be traced back to a single pirate haven, Nassau.

Angus Konstam, one of the world's leading pirate experts, has brought his 30 years of research to create the definitive book on the Golden Age of Piracy. Many of the privateers the British had used to prey on French and Spanish shipping during the War of the Spanish Succession turned to piracy. The pirates took over Nassau on the Bahamian island of New Providence and turned it into their own pirate haven, where shady merchants were happy to buy their plunder. It became the hub of a pirate network that included some of the most notorious pirates in history: Blackbeard, 'Calico Jack' Rackam, Charles Vane and Bartholomew Roberts.

The growth of piracy led to a major surge in attacks in the Caribbean and along North America's Atlantic seaboard. With the fragile maritime economy of the Americas threatened with collapse, major ports were threatened and trade brought to a standstill, the British government finally declared war on the pirates. The Pirate Menace draws on extensive research, as well as a wide range of first-hand accounts, to produce a new history of the heyday of historical piracy.

A thorough, exciting examination of 18th-century pirate life, with wonderful details.
--Publishers Weekly

Interesting and exciting . . . a thoroughly enjoyable chronicle of an interesting life and interesting era.
--Booklist

The definitive biography of history's most fearsome and famous pirate

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade.

A detailed account of the war-winning role that a handful of Harrier squadrons played in the Falklands War.

On 5 April 1982, the British aircraft carriers Hermes and Invincible sailed for the South Atlantic at the heart of the task force that would retake the Falkland Islands, known to Argentina as the Islas Malvinas. Air power was essential to the operation, and some analysts considered the contest unwinnable. The British had just 42 fighter jets available (28 Sea Harriers and 14 RAF Harrier GR.3s), and were outnumbered three-to-one by the Argentinian Air Force.

Naval expert Angus Konstam offers a focused history of naval aviation in the Falklands War. The superbly manoeuvrable Harriers provided air cover during the ferociously contested landings, and later a Harrier Forward Operating Base on the islands was also made available. He explains how the British forces achieved their impressive Falklands air-to-air record, shooting down 21 Argentinian jets for no losses, while suffering more to anti-aircraft fire. He also looks into the Harriers' ground-attack campaign, and explains the roles played by weapons technology, radar, electronic warfare, aerial reconnaissance, and support helicopters.

Illustrated throughout with spectacular new artwork, 3D diagrams and maps, this book explains how the brutal test of the Falklands War showed the way forward for naval aviation and fleet air defence for decades to come.

A fascinating account of the last major Allied operation in the South-West Pacific, and the largest Australian military operation of World War II.

A week after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Japanese troops landed near Brunei on the South-East Asian island of Borneo. Within eight weeks, the entire island had been overrun, and its Dutch and British Indian defenders had been ejected. By early April 1942, the entire Dutch East Indies were in Japanese hands, and remained under Japanese occupation for a further three years.

The late-1944 US landings in the Philippines effectively cut oil- and resource-rich Borneo off from Japan. Now that it was considered a worthy strategic prize for the Allies, General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the South-West Pacific Theater, began planning for the recapture of the key island.

This compelling work explores the planning and execution of Operation Oboe, which was spearheaded by Australian troops but involved naval and special forces from the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. Detailed maps explore the six separate stages, each of which involved amphibious landings. Battlescene artworks and photographs bring to life notable events such as the capture of Tarakan, Labuan, Brunei and Sarawak. Also covered are the Allied special forces guerrilla campaigns and Australian 7th Infantry Division's landing at Balikapan - which proved to be the turning point of this hard-fought campaign.

The first history of how the aircraft of the British Pacific Fleet shattered Japanese oilfields in Sumatra, starving Japan of oil and proving how Anglo-American navies could fight together.

With the war in Europe in its final stages, by 1944 the Royal Navy was able to put together a major force to join the campaign against Japan. The British Pacific Fleet was arguably the most powerful fleet the Royal Navy has ever sent into action.

In this book, renowned naval historian Angus Konstam explores how the first target of British naval power in the Pacific would be the strategically vital oil fields in Japanese-occupied Sumatra, part of the Dutch East Indies. Between April 1944 and January 1945, the task force struck oil fields and production centres, Japanese airfields, naval facilities and troop concentrations. Initially working alongside US Navy carriers, and learning their ruthlessly effective fast carrier doctrine, the British would end the Sumatra campaign with a powerful fleet of ten carriers of their own.

Packed with dramatic artwork, maps, 3D diagrams and archive photos, this is the first history of the Sumatra raids, a prime example of how naval air power could achieve key strategic ends. They also proved that the Allied navies could fight successfully alongside one another - paving the way for the BPF's participation in the capture of Okinawa.

An illustrated history of the American-built destroyers and frigates supplied to the Royal Navy under Lend-Lease, which played a crucial role in Britain's war in the Atlantic.

As U-boat attacks on Britain's vital sea lanes increased in ferocity, and Royal Navy warship losses mounted, the United States passed the Lend-Lease Act, the cornerstone of America's wartime role as armourer to the Allies.

Naval historian Angus Konstam here offers an account of the Royal Navy's Lend-Lease destroyers and escorts. The first batch were 50 World War I-era 'four-stacker' destroyers, in a deal sealed by the transfer of several global British bases to the USA. These warships were immediately recrewed, refitted and pressed into service in the Battle of the Atlantic. These ageing destroyers were followed by over a hundred more Lend-Lease warships, many of which were built especially for British service in American shipyards. Their arrival helped tip the balance in the hard-fought war against the U-boats, while others were used to fulfil other crucial wartime missions.

With detailed ship profiles of the major classes, a cutaway of HMS Campbeltown (of Saint-Nazaire raid fame) as it appeared in 1941, and superb battlescene artwork, this is a comprehensive look at a crucial aspect of the Battle of the Atlantic.

A thorough, exciting examination of 18th-century pirate life, with wonderful details.
--Publishers Weekly

Interesting and exciting . . . a thoroughly enjoyable chronicle of an interesting life and interesting era.
--Booklist

The definitive biography of history's most fearsome and famous pirate

Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now.

Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade.

World War I was Britain's last moment as the world's naval superpower, and its Grand Fleet was then the most powerful ever seen. Fully illustrated, this explores its fighting power.

At the start of World War I, the Royal Navy's forces were amalgamated into a single entity, the Grand Fleet, and stationed in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The Grand Fleet was the largest amalgamation of modern naval power the world had seen, with over 30 dreadnought battleships or battlecruisers, and a plethora of cruisers and destroyers. In 1917 it was reinforced further by a powerful American squadron.

In this book, based on extensive primary source research, naval expert Angus Konstam assesses the Grand Fleet's ships, technology, organization, command and intelligence, and how it fought. While ship-for-ship its German counterparts were better designed, as a combined fleet Admiral Jellicoe's armada was unstoppable. It took part in several clashes with its German foe during the war, but it was only at the Battle of Jutland, in 1916, that Jellicoe finally had the chance to destroy the enemy.

Although the High Seas Fleet deftly avoided the trap laid for it, the Grand Fleet's economic blockade then really began to bite, which led to Germany's surrender in November 1918. Packed with battle diagrams, spectacular artwork, and archive photos, this book is an essential guide to the last time the Royal Navy would be indisputably the world's most powerful.

Superbly illustrated with original artwork throughout, this book explores the ironclad warships that fought the little-known battles of South America's War of the Pacific.

In the late 19th century, a war erupted between Chile and Peru, the catalyst for which was control of guano-rich Chincha islands. Given the geography of the two countries, with a narrow, arid land border and long exposed coastlines, it was inevitable that the War of the Pacific would predominantly be a naval war.

It was a unique episode of military history, fought by two newly emergent South American states, using the latest technology - ironclad, steam-powered warships - and involving more naval battles than in the American Civil War, including a blockade, the capture of key warships, and bombardments of ports. Chile's navy was larger and more modern, while Peru's trump card was the small but powerful ironclad Huáscar.

In this book, naval expert Angus Konstam offers readers an essential guide to this little-known naval war, illustrated with detailed profiles of the key ironclads, spectacular original artwork of the battles and a cutaway of Huáscar. He briefly covers the strategies of the warring powers as well as exploring all the key points of the naval campaign and the details of the warships involved, as a handful of ironclads fought for naval supremacy in South America.

A gripping account of the most famous convoy operation of the war, which marked a high-water mark for the German naval campaign in the Arctic.

The Arctic was a vital conduit for transporting supplies directly from Great Britain to Russia. The British Home Fleet was tasked with protecting these convoys, which passed within range of the German bases in Norway. By 1942, the Germans had reinforced their air and naval forces, stationing a powerful naval surface group there centred around the battleship Tirpitz.

Convoy PQ-17 was set to be the last convoy to sail until the autumn of 1942, and was a particularly large one, involving 35 merchant ships, over half of which were American. When it departed Reykjavik on 27 June, bound for Archangel, the Germans were ready and waiting. The convoy was the first large joint Anglo-American naval operation under British command.

Here, expert naval historian Angus Konstam documents the withdrawal of the Allied close escort to intercept the German raiders, and the devastating attacks on the scattered merchant ships by German aircraft and U-boats. Maps and diagrams plot the passage and fate of the convoy elements, and stunning artworks bring to life key moments of their efforts to escape. In the end, 24 Allied ships were sunk, and only ten merchant ships and four auxiliaries reached the port of Archangel. PQ-17 would prove to be the worst convoy loss of World War II, and the most controversial.

Packed with illustrations, this is a new history and analysis of how the Royal Navy's most important fleet operated and fought the German Navy in the crucial first years of World War II.

Throughout its history, the Royal Navy's most powerful fleet has been the one guarding home waters. In this book, naval historian Angus Konstam explores the fighting power, the roles, and the battles of the Home Fleet, in the crucial first years of World War II when it was Britain's most powerful fighting force, anchored in the northern bastion of Scapa Flow.

He explains the complex responsibilities of the fleet, charged simultaneously with preventing the powerful German Navy from breaking out into the Atlantic; preparing to challenge any cross-Channel invasion force; and attacking German naval operations in the North Sea. Home Fleet actions included the loss of HMS Hood, the sinking of the Bismarck and countering the invasion of Norway, Germany's biggest amphibious operation of the war.

Packed with striking new artwork and 3D diagrams and maps, this book offers a detailed portrait of the Home Fleet during these most crucial years of the war, from the capabilities of the warships to logistics and intelligence-gathering, to how the fleet was organized and commanded, and how and why it fought as it did.

A highly illustrated introduction to some of the greatest battles in world history, from the iconic encounters of the Ancient World such as Thermopylae and Cannae, through to the major clashes of the 20th century epitomized by Stalingrad and Khe Sanh.

This concise study by renowned military historian Angus Konstam examines one hundred of the most famous battles from world history. It includes great naval engagements such as Salamis, Trafalgar, Jutland and Midway; pivotal land battles that decided the fate of nations, such as Hastings, Yorktown, Gettysburg and the Somme; and the impact of the new dimension of aerial warfare in the 20th century at Pearl Harbor, in the Battle of Britain and in the skies over Hiroshima.

This highly illustrated book features 100 full-colour battlescene artworks from Osprey's comprehensive archive and is the ideal introduction to the battles that changed the course of history.

A superbly illustrated new account of how Germany's High Seas Fleet was built, operated and fought, as it challenged the world's most powerful navy in World War I.

Seven years before the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial German Navy rebranded its Home Fleet as the Hochseeflotte, or High Seas Fleet. It was a force designed to take on the Royal Navy, then the world's most powerful, and for the next four years the North Sea would be their battleground.

Drawing on extensive research, Angus Konstam offers the reader a concise, fully illustrated account of how the entire High Seas Fleet was designed and built, how it operated, and how it fought. The fleet was a modern, balanced force of dreadnought battleships, battlecruisers, cruisers and torpedo boats, using Zeppelins and U-boats for reconnaissance. The ultimate test between them came in May 1916, when they clashed at Jutland.

Packed with spectacular original artwork, maps, 3D diagrams and archive photos, it explains how and why the fleet was built, its role, and how and why it fought as it did. From fighting doctrine and crew training to intelligence, logistics, and gunnery, this book is an essential guide to the Kaiser's audacious bid for naval glory.

Angus Konstam setssail through the brutal history of piracy, separating myth from legend and fact from fiction. Pirates takes us into the depths of the pirate's dark world, examining the many colorful characters from Cretans and Vikings to French corsairs and the British rogues of the golden age of piracy, such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd and even two women pirates, Mary Read and Ann Bonny, who became pregnant to avoid execution. A blood-soaked, riveting account, itprovides a complete history of the fearsome threat on the high seas from the marauders in the pages of antiquity to the Somali pirates in the headlines of today.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars encompassed a period when rival European fleets vied for naval supremacy, and naval tactics were evolving. The British Royal Navy emerged triumphant as the leading world sea power, and the epitome of Britannic naval strength was the Ship-of-the-Line. These 'wooden walls' were more than merely floating gun batteries: they contained a crew of up to 800 men, and often had to remain at sea for extended periods. This book offers detailed coverage of the complex vessels that were the largest man-made structures produced in the pre-Industrial era.

Osprey's examination of the short yet crucial campaign of the American Civil War (1861-1865). When General Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy was in crisis. Lee changed all that in a brilliant, week-long campaign. On 26 June the Confederates struck, fighting two hard-fought battles in two days at Mechanicsville and Gaine's Mill. The ferocity of the Confederate assaults convinced McClellan that he was outnumbered. Unable to keep the Confederates at bay, the Union army was recalled to Washington. Despite losing a quarter of his men, Lee had saved Richmond, and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Army of the Potomac.

The Ultimate WarshipHer keel measured 126 feet, and she stretched to 160 feet overall. Her 46.5-foot beam sacrificed speed for the sake of stability, and the 19 feet of water she drew denied her access to smaller ports. Some saw her enormous size and ungainly proportions as serious drawbacks, but the 102 heavy bronze cannon that bristled from her flanks guaranteed that this black-hulled, ornately decorated monster would live up to her name: Sovereign of the Seas. The Dutch sailors who faced her in battle called her by another name, The Golden Devil.

This immensely powerful floating fortress was the culmination of more than two hundred years of competition among the kingdoms of Europe to create the perfect marriage between guns and ships. Their relentless quest for maritime supremacy had produced a seemingly endless succession of grandiose flagships, from Henry V's Grace à Dieu to Sweden's ill-fated Vasa. Emerging nation-states had invested vast portions of their treasuries, kings had vied as much for prestige as for power, and thousands of hapless seamen had perished in pursuit of this goal.

Sovereigns of the Sea is a gripping tale of an arms race that created and ruined empires, changed the map of the world, and led Europe out of the Renaissance and into the modern age.

With the outbreak of World War II, Britain's Royal Navy and her fleet of battleships would be at the forefront of her defence. Yet from a fleet of 12 battleships, ten were already over 20 years old, venerable veterans of World War I. Extensive modifications throughout the 1930s allowed these ships to perform a vital service throughout the six long years of conflict, and further improvements made during the course of the war enabled them to hold their own against their German and Italian counterparts. This title offers a comprehensive review of the development of these British battleships from their initial commissioning to their peacetime modifications and wartime service. Detailed descriptions of the main armament of each ship will offer further analysis of individual battleships' effectiveness, discussing how the guns were manned when engaging the enemy. Describing HMS Warspite during the battle of Matapan in 1941, the author details how this British battleship, together with other Royal Navy and Australian vessels, defeated the might of the Italian navy so that they never again threatened Allied fleets within the Mediterranean. With specially commissioned artwork and a dramatic retelling of key battleship engagements, this book will highlight what it was like on board for the sailors who risked their lives on the high seas.

As World War I ended, the victors were developing a powerful new generation of 'hyper-dreadnoughts' and battlecruisers. Fully illustrated, this studies the big-gun warships that never were.

1918 was a moment of great naval change. Britain still had the largest fleet in the world, but its ships were ageing, and many of them were markedly inferior to the latest American and Japanese battleships. An arms race loomed between the war's victors.

In this book naval expert Angus Konstam studies and compares the battleships being designed between 1918 and 1922, which drew on the lessons of World War I. Britain was designing four G3-class 15in-gun battlecruisers, plus four N3 'hyper-dreadnoughts' mounting colossal 18in guns. The US Navy was planning six new South Dakota battleships, carrying an incredible 12 16in guns, plus six Lexington-class battlecruisers. Japan was working on a similar project, and in 1920 the first of four Amagi-class battlecruisers were laid down.

However, in 1922 this costly arms race was averted by the Washington Naval Treaty, which halted new battleship construction, and limited the major fleets. These battleships and battlecruisers were mostly cancelled and scrapped, with a few, such as Lexington and Akagi, converted into aircraft carriers. With new colour reconstructions of the G3, H3, South Dakota, Lexington and Amagi classes, this is the first book to study these never-built monster warships.

The Second Battle of Sirte was a key naval clash in the Mediterranean, and a vital moment in the struggle for Malta's survival.

Malta was the key to the hard-fought naval campaign being waged in the Mediterranean, a link in the vital Axis supply lines between Italy and North Africa. Struggling under a sustained Axis bombing campaign, Malta depended on convoys of supplies to survive. Axis air formations dominated the skies, making any attempt to relieve the island extremely hazardous.

In December 1941, a convoy from the east led to an inconclusive clash with the Italians at the First Battle of Sirte. In late March 1942, the situation escalated. The decisive clash came on the afternoon of 22 March, when British destroyers launched a series of torpedo attacks against Italian ships. At dawn, Axis aircraft appeared and a series of intense air attacks followed. Although three of the convoy's four ships reached Malta, they were sunk days later. Still, it was enough to buy Malta the time it needed to remain in the fight.

This highly illustrated title by renowned naval historian Angus Konstam demonstrates the importance of radar, intelligence and airpower, and above all determination and grit in the face of a superior enemy.