Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas 1500-1750 (Latin American Realities) | 
 enlarge | Author: Kris E. Lane
Publisher: M.E. Sharpe
Category: Book
List Price: $30.95
Buy New: $21.92
You Save: $9.03 (29%)
New (4) Used (22) from $16.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 335700
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 237
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0765602571
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.164097
EAN: 9780765602572
ASIN: 0765602571
Publication Date: July 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New - Never Opened. Fast, reliable delivery. Exceptional customer service. Selling books online since 1999. Standard shipping is USPS. Expedited shipping is UPS Ground. Expedited shipping will NOT deliver to HI, AK, PR, PO Boxes, APO/FPO.
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Product Description
This introductory survey to maritime predation in the Americas from the age of Columbus to the reign of the Spanish king Philip V includes piracy, privateering (state-sponsored sea-robbery), and genuine warfare carried out by professional navies.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A fun, accurate book on piracy February 25, 2003
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Kris Lane apparently grew up with the same wide-eyed awe of pirates that most of us grew up with. His "Pillaging the Empire" does it's best to reshape our opinions of pirates as a fun-loving bunch of misfits and saucy rogues, but like many recent works on the subject of piracy, he doesn't quite do it. One can't help but retain a skewed view of pirates, despite the unpleasant tales of how dirty ships were, how rotten the food was, how murderous the population was, etc. Like David Cordingly's excellent "Under the Black Flag", the pirate myth is largely debunked, the truth is revealed to be stranger than fiction, but you can still tell that at the end Lane (like Cordingly before him) still gets a kick out of recalling the pirate lifestyle.
The book itself tells the story of American piracy in a fun manner, but everything is presented scholarly; sources are cited and there are enough annotated footnotes to keep dorks like me happy. The sidebar pieces are handy, and cover related topics like gambling in the 17th century, a typical pirate's diet, etc. Interesting stuff for the curious and a good awakening to those who think pirates are all guff-talking, one-eyed parrot owners with scurvy and gangrene.
 An average history book, lacking many primary sources June 17, 1999
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book is made mostly from second sources such as already printed books, but uses very few primary ones. In fact, it is missing key authors such as Hakluyt, he uses only the 1724 edition of Captain Johnson book (neglecting the 1726 which is the most complete), and it seems he used only a resumed version in one volume of Labat's massive work of more than 6 volumes, among other shortcomings. Then he puts in his bibliography the __Don Quixote__, but this novel has nothing to do with piracy in the Americas. I bought this book because it was advertised as being composed of many Spanish sources. But sadly, it has very, very few. In fact he only uses _one_ primary Spanish source (Alsedo), and about two or three books written by Spaniards of our time. His "select bibliography" is very short (68 books in all), and I doubt he read any more. In general terms, the information he provides is okay, and he is carefull not to make mistakes. Problem is, it is not an original book, nor it keeps up to what it promises. Readers that expect to find in it a rich quantity of Spanish references, archives, chroniclers, etceteras, do not be misleaded.
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