Title: Lots of enthusiasm but doesn't translate to the reader.
Review: This book was clearly written by someone who loves pirates and knows a lot about them. Unfortunately it's packed so full of names, dates and places that there's no real room for narrative. As a reader I was so worried about which name went with which ship in what part of the world and under whose flag that I was often burned out on the subject after half a chapter.It includes maps which are very good and essential, and there are 'boxes' at the end of each chapter containing anecdotal information (such as chapter 2's "Elizabethan Era Navigation") that are more charming and easy to digest than the main text.I quite honestly wanted to like this book, even while I was reading it, but the author never fully developed the narrative thread that would have made this sweeping look at 250 years of piracy read like anything other than a textbook.
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