Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates - Tapa dura

[A] fascinating true story--not of moonlit beaches and buried treasure but of political intrigue and complicated business deal-making, not of swashbucklers on the high seas but of men who went to sea to escape a stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed...[Ritchie] makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy. Fascinating...Captain Kidd emerges as a very real historical person, the victim of shifts in English and colonial politics, and changes in mercantile, imperial and legal attitudes...Ritchie...has sorted out the conflicting evidence in a masterful way. The most detailed record I have ever seen of a pirate voyage, with its origins and aftermath; I doubt if there is another like it. Ritchie has also placed it in its historic context, describing the political, and especially the economic events that shaped piracy in its age of transition..."Captain Kidd" is a first-rate book. -- George MacDonald Fraser "Washington Post" A fascinating true story--not of moonlit beaches and buried treasure but of political intrigue and complicated business deal-making, not of swashbucklers on the high seas but of men who went to sea to escape a stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed... Ritchie makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy. -- Jim Haskins "New York Times Book Review" conflicting evidence in a masterful way. especially the economic events that shaped piracy in its age of transition..."Captain Kidd" is a first-rate book. stifling social order so rigid that even the fabrics they could wear were prescribed...[Ritchie] makes the shadowy, myth-laden figure of William Kidd a real person, and not without sympathy.

all, "Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates" is an epic of adventure on the high seas and a tale of back-room politics on land that captures the mind and the imagination.