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Redicker, Marcus "Villains of all Nations. Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age". Verso, London, New York, 2004. Hbk, 240pp. Illus, notes, index. ISBN 1-84467-008-2 £18.99.

At first glance this book appears to be yet another set of rollicking yarns of everybody's favourite badboys, the pirates of the high seas, complete with a cover illustration of someone being forced to walk the gangplank before their descent into Davy Jones' locker. Which just shows how misleading first impressions can be.

A closer inspection, however, reveals that this is published by Verso, a new left imprint of many years standing, and not one to given to issuing ripping yarns. And so it proves on reading. Redicker is an established scholar of the subject and here concentrates not on another retelling of tales but an acute political, economic and cultural analysis of the phenomenon of piracy as practiced in what he terms the golden age: 1716 - 1726.

Redicker situates this particular episode of piracy in a lull in the ongoing European wars for economic dominance, when the Americas were still a domain for colonisation and brute exploitation and the slave trade becoming an increasingly important factor in the expansion of the production of goods for export back to the centres of empire. He shows how the (temporary) ending of the wars had resulted in a surplus of seamen, trained for combat, many experienced privateers, yet now on the scrapheap, or at best working in appalling conditions for meagre wages (if they got paid at all.) When combined with the legacy of the English revolution and simple necessity eventually resulted in crews mutinying and attempting to live out their, often short, lives in as best a way they could.

The author conducts a detailed analysis of the composition of the crews, showing them to overwhelmingly lower-class seamen (with a few women) with considerable maritime experience. The crews were cosmopolitan, of whatever nationality or colour, chance brought together. Initially they were all volunteers and bound together by articles freely agreed upon. Captains were elected and could be over-ruled outside of combat situations, and even demoted or killed if they proved too cruel or selfish, a degree of self-governance rare even in today's world let alone the early years of the 18th century. (I notice that despite a nod to Peter Lamborn Wilson in the acknowledgements, Redicker manages to avoid any hint of calling pirate ships "Temporary Autonomous Zones"!!)

The position of women and people of colour are given due regard, with Mary Read and Anne Bonny in starring roles, and the fact that many crewmembers were freed slaves or freeborn Africans, also dealt with. Which is not to say that all pirate crews were bastions of sex and race equality - most ships banned women from serving aboard - and if pirates captured slave ships, then the salves were as likely to be treated as plunder and sold at the earliest opportunity for the best possible price.

Although many pirate crewmembers had become so as a reaction to the vicious onboard discipline on merchant ships, there was not an automatic killing of captured officers. Instead, the pirates would often undertake an examination of the senior officers and see what their crew thought of them. Those who treated their men fairly would often escape with their lives, and if they were spectacularly lucky, they might even be given their ship back and be allowed to go on their way. That however became increasingly rare as time went by and the authorities started to seriously crack down on the pirates.

The author's analysis of the fate of pirates suggests that as many as half of those who became pirates in this period died either in combat or by being executed. Given these odds it is not surprising that whenever pirates managed to obtain booty, especially alcohol, it was devoured as soon as possible. Pirate's ships were most often crewed by drunken sailors, which did nothing to improve their fighting capabilities. Another interesting aspect of this book is Redicker's examination of pirates' view of death.

The main factor, which forced the authorities to finally put a stop to this piracy, was the need to protect the profits of the merchants whose goods were being plundered. As this applied as much to French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese as well as English traders, when they were not at war, it was in their mutual interest to put a stop to the piracy - pirates not being especially fussed whose cargoes they plundered. The effect of piracy on the slave trade was, for a few years, quite substantial, with successful assaults on several trading ports and forts on the West African coast, until the English Admiralty finally managed to get a squadron of warships together to overwhelm the pirates. Disregarding the law was bad enough, but to disrupt the accumulation of profits was really beyond the pale

In one small aside Redicker unfortunately does for the story of Captain Mission and his pirate utopia on Madagascar, a story from Captain Charles Johnson's history of piracy. Apparently the relevant chapter is a fiction, unlike the rest of his book, which appears to be based, at least, on fact.

The book actually makes a quick read, is fully footnoted and indexed but lacks a bibliography. If one was being hypercritical one could say it reads like an appendix to a much larger history of piracy, rather than being a history in its own right. Verso have done a splendid job in putting the book together (apart from the cover), and Redicker writes with the authority of one who has spent over 25 years of his life researching the subject but I have to say that a cover price of £18.99 for such a book will keep it off the bookshelves of most casual readers, and restrict it to those with a more serious academic interest in the subject. So another one to get from the library then (or maybe to steal or pirate!!!)

A thorough, well-written examination of the subject, but probably too expensive and too academic for most casual readers.

7/10

Richard Alexander