A recipe for piracy
CLAIRE JOWITT sets out on a daring voyage through the history of pirates, which negotiates its global scope with skill Penned by an expert in terrorism studies, this ambitious new study offers pa global account of pirates and their modus operandi from the /iddle #ges to the present dayq. Wide-ranging in geography and chronology, it aims to survey the ingredients of the ‘recipe’ for piracy an astute metaphor first coined by )erard /ueller and (reda #dler in their book Outlaws of the Ocean), which have led to a ‘piracy cycle’ across time and space.
pTake a maritime geography, which favours local outlaws and disfavours distant law enforcers,q writes .ehr. p#dd the chance of enormous profit and little risk. /iZ it generously with strife, internal and eZternal. #void maritime law enforcement capacity, and do not add common law %orruption helps for spicing /ake it hot.q
The danger of following one universal recipe, of course, is that the book loses flavour and teZture when analysing individual pirate ‘dishes’, ie specific conteZts in which piracy occurs. ;et .ehr’s study succeeds in avoiding homogenisation, even as it ranges widely. We encounter 5aracen pirates attacking the #bbasid and (atimid %aliphates between 0 and , the Victual $rothers and .ikedeelers pillaging the medieval *anseatic .eague, 'li\abethan ‘seadogs’, #tlantic pirates in the so-called ‘)olden #ge’, %hinese pirates, contemporary 5omali pirates off the $anaadir coast, and 0igerian pirates active in the )ulf of )uinea, among many others.
The book is most compelling and most confidently told in its final part, ‘# )lobalised World, to the 2resent’, which benefits from .ehr’s considerable research eZpertise in 5omali piracy and contemporary international relations. Two earlier parts – ‘&istinct Regions, #& 00 to 00’ and ‘The Rise of 'uropean 5ea 2ower, 00– ’ – are heavily reliant on a relatively small range of wellrespected critical and conteZtual secondary sources rather than eZtensive and deep-diving primary research. 1ccasionally, mistakes creep in. /ost prominent, perhaps, is the book’s uncontested acceptance that &aniel &efoe was the author of the seminal work in pirate mythography A General History of the Pyrates
by %aptain %harles ,ohnson, widely believed to be a pseudonym. p#s &efoe has it,q says .ehr, Suoting General History, ‘pall the rest, much wounded, jump’d over-board, and called out for 3uartersq’. The identity of ‘%aptain %harles ,ohnson’ is, however, an
We meet Chinese pirates, Somali pirates, Elizabethan seadogs and the Victual Brothers pillaging the Hanseatic League
old chestnut of pirate studies, and subject of numerous inSuiries and theories about possible candidates. To accept wholesale &efoe’s authorship without comment somewhat reduces the book’s authority to tell the pwhole storyq of piracy – to Suote the flyleaf – in areas beyond the author’s research eZpertise.
0onetheless, Pirates is an enjoyable read, written with energy and skill. It is a brave attempt to analyse the drivers of piracy through the ages, as well as policies and operations that reduce or combat its threat. The book’s breadth is both a strength and weakness it is ‘new’ in aiming to understand the patterns of piracy across time and space but, in conseSuence, for this reader at least, .ehr’s focus on the ‘recipe’ at times denies us the full flavour of the ‘dish’.