NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS

A thrilling and superbly crafted (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.

One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook's third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers as well as the oral traditions of Indigenous Pacific islanders.--The New York Times Book Review

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science--the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.

A magisterial cultural history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, ranging from the early shaping of the continents and the emergence of homo sapiens to the story of shipbuilding, navigation, maritime exploration, slavery, and nascent European imperialism.

A dazzling and ambitious history of the pre-Columbian Atlantic seas, Ocean is a story that begins with the formation of the mid-Atlantic ridge some 200 million years ago and ends with the Castilian conquest of the Canary Islands in the fifteenth century, providing a template for the methods used by the Spanish in their colonization of the New World.

John Haywood eloquently argues that the perception of Atlantic history beginning with the first voyage of the celebrated Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus is a mistaken one, and that the seafaring and shipbuilding skills that enabled European global exploration and expansion did not arrive fully formed in the fifteenth century, but instead were learned over centuries and millennia in the Atlantic and its peripheral seas. The pre-Columbian history of the Atlantic is the story of how Europeans learned to master the oceans. This story is, therefore, key to understanding why it was Europeans, and not any of the world's other seafaring peoples, who discovered the world.

Informed by the author's extensive travels around the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Newfoundland's Grand Banks, the Sea of Darkness, and the weed-covered Sargasso Sea, and populated by a heterogeneous and multiethnic cast of seafarers, fishermen, monks, merchants, and dreamers, Ocean is an in-depth history of a neglected subject, fusing geology, geography, mythology, developing maritime technologies, and the early history of exploration to narrate an enthralling story--one which lies at the very heart of Europe's modern history and its relationship with the rest of the world.

A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad's long-overlooked maritime origins, from a pre-eminent scholar of Atlantic history and the award-winning author of The Slave Ship

As many as 100,000 enslaved people fled successfully from the horrors of bondage in the antebellum South, finding safe harbor along a network of passageways across North America now known as the Underground Railroad. Yet imagery of fugitives ushered clandestinely from safe house to safe house fails to capture the full breadth of these harrowing journeys: many escapes took place not by land but by sea.

Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. Sprawling through the intricate riverways of the Carolinas to the banks of the Chesapeake Bay to Boston's harbors, these tales illuminate the little-known stories of freedom seekers who turned their sights to the sea--among them the legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, one of the Underground Railroad's most famous architects.

Marcus Rediker, one of the leading scholars of maritime history, puts his command of archival research on full display in this luminous portrait of the Atlantic waterfront as a place of conspiracy, mutiny, and liberation. Freedom Ship is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the complete story of one of North America's most significant historical moments.

This is the amazing story in words and images of the historic discovery of the wreck of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, deep beneath the ice of Antarctica.

In March 2022, an international polar expedition team made an astonishing find: the wreck of Ernest Shackleton's legendary Endurance, lost in 1915 after being crushed by ice and then swallowed by the Weddell Sea. The harrowing story of Shackleton's survival and rescue of all 27 men aboard is well known, but the ship has lain unseen for a century, 10,000 feet underwater--until now. The vessel remains incredibly intact, as crystal-clear photography and digital scans from the expedition reveal. A thrilling firsthand account of the expedition coauthored by its leader and deputy leader, this is the first and only book to fully document the discovery, produced in full cooperation with the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust.

Discover the fascinating and outrageously readable account of the roguish acts of the first pirates to raid the Pacific in a crusade that ended in a sensational trial back in England--perfect for readers of Nathaniel Philbrick and David McCullough (Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God)

The year is 1680, in the heart of the Golden Age of Piracy, and more than three hundred daring, hardened pirates--a potent mix of low-life scallywags and a rare breed of gentlemen buccaneers--gather on a remote Caribbean island. The plan: to wreak havoc on the Pacific coastline, raiding cities, mines, and merchant ships. The booty: the bright gleam of Spanish gold and the chance to become legends. So begins one of the greatest piratical adventures of the era--a story not given its full due until now.

Inspired by the intrepid forays of pirate turned Jamaican governor Captain Henry Morgan--yes, that Captain Morgan--the company crosses Panama on foot, slashing its way through the Darien Isthmus, one of the thickest jungles on the planet, and liberating a native princess along the way. After reaching the South Sea, the buccaneers, primarily Englishmen, plunder the Spanish Main in a series of historic assaults, often prevailing against staggering odds and superior firepower. A collective shudder racks the western coastline of South America as the English pirates, waging a kind of proxy war against the Spaniards, gleefully undertake a brief reign over Pacific waters, marauding up and down the continent.

With novelistic prose and a rip-roaring sense of adventure, Keith Thomson guides us through the pirates' legendary two-year odyssey. We witness the buccaneers evading Indigenous tribes, Spanish conquistadors, and sometimes even their own English countrymen, all with the ever-present threat of the gallows for anyone captured. By fusing contemporaneous accounts with intensive research and previously unknown primary sources, Born to Be Hanged offers a rollicking account of one of the most astonishing pirate expeditions of all time.

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy's Golden Age - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. Deftly blending scholarship and drama (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a tour de force history (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.

Real-life accounts of the world's most notorious pirates--both men and women, from the Golden Age of Piracy and beyond--compiled by the New York Times bestselling author of A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself

A Penguin Classic

Spanning three centuries and eight thousand nautical miles, and compiled by a direct descendant of a sailor who waged war with pirates in the early nineteenth century, The Penguin Book of Pirates takes us behind the eye patches, the peg legs, and the skull and crossbones of the Jolly Roger and into the no-man's-land of piracy that is rife with paradoxes and plot twists. Here, in a fascinating array of accounts that include trial transcripts, journalism, ship logs, and more, are the grit and patois of real maritime marauders like the infamous Blackbeard; the pirates who inspired Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, Stede Bonnet in Max's Our Flag Means Death, and the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride; the astoundingly egalitarian multi-ethnic and multilingual crews that became enmeshed in historical horrors like the slave trade; and lesser-known but no less formidable women pirates, many of whom disguised themselves as men. By turns brutal, harrowing, and inspiring, these accounts of the radically free sailors who were citizens more of the oceangoing world than of any nation on land remind us of the glories and dangers of the open seas and the seductive appeal of communities forged in resistance.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, THE ECONOMIST, NPR, THE NEW YORKER, THE SMITHSONIAN, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS

A thrilling and superbly crafted (The Wall Street Journal) account of the most momentous voyage of the Age of Exploration, which culminated in Captain James Cook's death in Hawaii, and left a complex and controversial legacy still debated to this day.

One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

In this masterly history, Sides tracks the 18th-century English naval officer James Cook's third and final voyage across the globe, painting a vivid and propulsive portrait that blends generations of scholarship with the firsthand accounts of European seafarers as well as the oral traditions of Indigenous Pacific islanders.--The New York Times Book Review

On July 12th, 1776, Captain James Cook, already lionized as the greatest explorer in British history, set off on his third voyage in his ship the HMS Resolution. Two-and-a-half years later, on a beach on the island of Hawaii, Cook was killed in a conflict with native Hawaiians. How did Cook, who was unique among captains for his respect for Indigenous peoples and cultures, come to that fatal moment?

Hampton Sides' bravura account of Cook's last journey both wrestles with Cook's legacy and provides a thrilling narrative of the titanic efforts and continual danger that characterized exploration in the 1700s. Cook was renowned for his peerless seamanship, his humane leadership, and his dedication to science--the famed naturalist Joseph Banks accompanied him on his first voyage, and Cook has been called one of the most important figures of the Age of Enlightenment. He was also deeply interested in the native people he encountered. In fact, his stated mission was to return a Tahitian man, Mai, who had become the toast of London, to his home islands. On previous expeditions, Cook mapped huge swaths of the Pacific, including the east coast of Australia, and initiated first European contact with numerous peoples. He treated his crew well, and endeavored to learn about the societies he encountered with curiosity and without judgment.

Yet something was different on this last voyage. Cook became mercurial, resorting to the lash to enforce discipline, and led his two vessels into danger time and again. Uncharacteristically, he ordered violent retaliation for perceived theft on the part of native peoples. This may have had something to do with his secret orders, which were to chart and claim lands before Britain's imperial rivals could, and to discover the fabled Northwest Passage. Whatever Cook's intentions, his scientific efforts were the sharp edge of the colonial sword, and the ultimate effects of first contact were catastrophic for Indigenous people around the world. The tensions between Cook's overt and covert missions came to a head on the shores of Hawaii. His first landing there was harmonious, but when Cook returned after mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, his exploitative treatment of the Hawaiians led to the fatal encounter.

At once a ferociously-paced story of adventure on the high seas and a searching examination of the complexities and consequences of the Age of Exploration, THE WIDE WIDE SEA is a major work from one of our finest narrative nonfiction writers.

Become an eyewitness to the tragic story of the Titanic - from its incredible construction, catastrophic sinking, and lasting legacy.

Travel back to the year 1912 and experience the Titanic's fateful maiden voyage from Southampton, UK, to New York City. Learn what life was like for people on board before the supposedly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg and ended up beneath the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Discover survival stories from the epic rescue mission and find out what happened to the captain, crew, and passengers. A titanic book for kids that encourages curiosity and explore the ship's treasures that lay undiscovered for years.

Loved and trusted for over 30 years, Eyewitness has a new look and even more content:

- A bite-sized formula of text with images that kids love!
- Fully revised and fact-checked by subject specialists
- Packed with facts, infographics, statistics, and timelines
- Updated with brand new eyewitness accounts from experts in the field

Eyewitness Titanic uses a groundbreaking visual layout that makes learning fun for kids aged 9-12. Easy-to-follow pages expertly show the people, objects, and events on board the Titanic, and infographics, statistics, and timelines explain the disaster as it happened.

Eyewitness content approved by -ologists!

DK's Eyewitness kids books are updated and fact-checked by subject specialists, with brand new first-hand eyewitness accounts throughout from experts in the field.

A best-selling series known and trusted for generations, with a fresh new look and up-to-date content.

What will you Eyewitness next?

Travel back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth with Eyewitness Dinosaur, or come face-to-face with a pharaoh in Eyewitness Ancient Egypt.

Do you think you've found your topic of interest? DK has even more history books for kids and adults alike find them all by searching for DK history books.

This is the most authoritative and highly literate account of these pernicious people that I have ever read.--Patrick O'Brian

A] wonderfully entertaining history of pirates and piracy . . . a rip-roaring read . . . fascinating and unexpected.--Men's Journal

This rollicking account of the golden age of piracy is packed with vivid history and high seas adventure. David Cordingly, an acclaimed expert on pirates, reveals the spellbinding truth behind the legends of Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Sir Francis Drake, the fierce female brigands Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and others who rode and robbed upon the world's most dangerous waters. Here, in thrilling detail, are the weapons they used, the ships they sailed, and the ways they fought--and were defeated. Under the Black Flag also charts the paths of fictional pirates such as Captain Hook and Long John Silver. The definitive resource on the subject, this book is as captivating as it is supremely entertaining.

Praise for Under the Black Flag

A] lively history . . . If you've ever been seduced by the myth of the cutlass-wielding pirate, consider David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag.--USA Today, Best Bets

Engagingly told . . . a tale of the power of imaginative literature to re-create the past.--Los Angeles Times

Entirely engaging and informative . . . a witty and spirited book.--The Washington Post Book World

Plenty of thrills and adventure to satisfy any reader.--The Philadelphia Inquirer

The incredible story of the Robin Hood of the Seas, who absconded with millions during the Golden Age of Piracy and who harbored an even greater secret.

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air--and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery's adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him the pirate king for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero. Rumors swirled about his disappearance. The only certainty is that Henry Avery became a ghost.

What happened to the notorious Avery has been pirate history's most baffling cold case for centuries. Now, in a remote archive, a coded letter written by Avery the Pirate himself, years after he disappeared, reveals a stunning truth. He was a pirate that came in from the cold . . .

In The Pirate King, Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan brilliantly tie Avery to the shadowy lives of two other icons of the early 18th century, including Daniel Defoe, the world-famous novelist and--as few people know--a deep-cover spy with more than a hundred pseudonyms, and Archbishop Thomas Tenison, a Protestant with a hatred of Catholic France.

Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan's The Pirate King brilliantly reveals the untold epic story of Henry Avery in all it's colorful glory--his exploits, his survival, his secret double life, and how he inspired the golden age of piracy.

A masterful narrative history of the dangerous lives of pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, revealing their unique impact on colonialism and empire.

The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one historical moment: the period from the 1660s to the 1730s, the so-called golden age of piracy.

A groundbreaking history of pirates, Enemies of All combines narrative adventure with deeply researched analysis, engrossing readers in the rise of piracy in the later seventeenth century, the debates about piracy in contemporary law and popular media, as well as the imperial efforts to suppress piracy in the early eighteenth century.

The Caribbean and American colonies of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands--where piracy surged across these decades--are the main theater for Enemies of All, but this is a global story. Evoking London, Paris, and Amsterdam, Curaçao, Port Royal, Tortuga, and Charleston, the narrative takes readers, too, from Ireland and the Mediterranean to Madagascar and India, from the Arabian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.

Familiar characters like Drake, Morgan, Blackbeard, Bonny and Read, Henry Every, and Captain Kidd all feature here, but so too will the less well-known figures from the history of piracy, their crew-members, shipmates, and their confederates ashore; the men and women whose transatlantic lives were bound up with the rise and fall of piracy.

Transforming how readers understand the history of pirates, Enemies of All presents not only the historical evidence but, more importantly, explains the consequences of piracy's unique influence on colonialism and European imperial ambitions.

Fall captive to the code--the real-life buccaneer bylaws that shaped every aspect of a pirate's life.

Pirates have long captured our imaginations with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye patches, and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone's survival. These Laws were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments, and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the Pirates' Code, which all pirates had to publicly swear by. Using primary sources like eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings, and maritime logs, this book explains how each one of the pirate codes was the key to pirates' success in battle, on sea, and on land.

Of all the stories of ships lost in what has come to be called the Graveyard of the Pacific, that of the steamship Valencia is among the saddest. In January 1906, the Valencia set out from San Francisco, bound for Seattle with 108 passengers and some sixty-five crew members aboard. Owing to bad weather and the captain's mistakes, the ship struck a reef eleven miles off Cape Beale on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. Rocks gashed open the ship's hull, and a series of further missteps soon compounded the tragedy a hundredfold. Only thirty-seven people survived, largely because of a lack of lifesaving infrastructure in the rugged area where the Valencia ran aground.

The wreck of the Valencia was an especially tragic one. To begin with, most on board perished, including every woman and child, many of whom had been lashed to the rigging high above the deck in an attempt to save them from the crashing waves. Additionally, the wreck itself was almost certainly avoidable, due almost entirely to navigational errors the captain made. Finally, rescue efforts--such as they were--were hampered by not just the sea and weather but by the mistakes (and some say the cowardice) of the would-be rescuers.

This book pieces together the story of the Valencia and her tragic end, weaving together not just the threads of the ill-fated voyage itself but also relevant contextual history, including the development of radio technologies and lifesaving equipment and services that simply came too late to help the doomed voyagers.

On the night of 14/15 April 1912, a brandnew, supposedly unsinkable ship, the largest and most luxurious vessel in the world at the time, collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage. Of the 2,208 people on board, only 712 were saved. The rest either drowned or froze to death in the icy-cold waters of the North Atlantic. How could this 'unsinkable' vessel sink and why did so few of those aboard survive? The authors bring the tragedy to life, telling the story of the ship's design, construction and maiden voyage. The stories of individuals who sailed on her, many previously known only as names on yellowing passenger and crew lists, are brought to light using rarely-seen accounts of the sinking. The stories of passengers of all classes and crewmembers alike, are explored. They tell the dramatic stories of lives lost and people saved, of the rescue ship Carpathia, and of the aftermath of the sinking. Never again would a large passenger liner sail without lifeboats for all. Despite the tragedy, the sinking of the Titanic indirectly led to untold numbers of lives being saved due to new regulations that came into force after the tragedy. Profusely illustrated, including many rare and unique views of the ship and those who sailed on her, this is as accurate and engrossing a telling of the life of the White Star Line's Titanic and her sinking as you will read anywhere. Made special by the use of so many rare survivor accounts from the eye witnesses to that night to remember, the narrative places the reader in the middle of the maiden voyage, and brings the tragic sinking to life as never before.

The dramatic biography of a slaveship turned freedom-fighter--which brings new insights into Britain's involvement in the end of the trade in enslaved people

In 1827 the Royal Navy purchased a Baltimore clipper and renamed her the Black Joke. Assigned to the Preventative Squadron, she patrolled the west coast of Africa and freed 3,692 captives from enslavement. Beloved by seafarers and celebrated by the public, the Black Joke would become the most famous weapon in the campaign for abolition.

But in her previous life as the Henriqueta, the Black Joke had been a slave ship.

Through the experiences of slavers and abolitionists, captives and crew, Stephen Taylor charts the vessel's extraordinary double life. As the Henriqueta she operated as an engine of atrocity, trafficking over 3,000 captives to plantations in Brazil. But subsequently manned by British seamen and Liberian Kru, the Black Joke became the scourge of Spanish and Brazilian slavers. She did so despite limited resources, neglect, and even obstruction by the authorities at home.

Taylor offers a gripping account of the world of the transatlantic trade, through the eyes of its perpetrators--and those who sought its end.

This is a beautiful book, replete with illustrations, photos, diagrams, and maps. The text balances technicality with storytelling, scholarly analysis with entertainment. It's a sweeping, fascinating look at barges, battleships, caravels, dhows, submarines, and more, placing them all in context with the battles, countries, discoveries, inventions, and people that surrounded them. Readers interested in history of any kind will enjoy this highly accessible book.
-- Publishers Weekly

From an ancient funeral ship to the Rainbow Warrior -- war, trade, science and pleasure on the open seas.

Fifty Ships that Changed the Course of History is a beautiful guide to 50 water vessels that played a key role in world history and had a great impact on human civilization. The book presents the ships chronologically, beginning with Pharaoh Khufu's solar barge from about 2566 BCE. The chapter includes a photograph of the reconstructed ship, discovered in 1954 near the Great Pyramid. Religious beliefs held that in the afterlife the pharaoh would need a ship to sail the cosmic waters of the sky with the sun god, Ra.

The book closes with another sun-seeking ship 4,000 years later. The epitome of an ocean cruise ship, the MS Allure of the Seas is the biggest passenger ship ever built. An Oasis-class cruise ship, it is a destination in itself, complete with a Central Park-like oasis, 18 decks, 5,492 passengers, and a crew of 2,384.

Between these landmark vessels is a variety of ships used for all of mankind's needs, from hunters searching for food, traders with goods to barter and warriors bent on conquest, to explorers longing to see what lay beyond the horizon. Over time, the first small primitive watercraft evolved into bigger seagoing vessels, shaping our history, culture and civilization along the way.

This attractive reference provides an innovative perspective on maritime and world history. It is an excellent selection for all collections.

Fall captive to the code--the real-life buccaneer bylaws that shaped every aspect of a pirate's life.

Pirates have long captured our imaginations with images of cutlass-wielding swashbucklers, eye patches, and buried treasure. But what was life really like on a pirate ship? Piracy was a risky, sometimes deadly occupation, and strict orders were essential for everyone's survival. These Laws were sets of rules that determined everything from how much each pirate earned from their plunder to compensation for injuries, punishments, and even the entertainment allowed on ships. These rules became known as the Pirates' Code, which all pirates had to publicly swear by. Using primary sources like eyewitness accounts, trial proceedings, and maritime logs, this book explains how each one of the pirate codes was the key to pirates' success in battle, on sea, and on land.