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The pirates that exist in our imagination are not just any pirates. Violent sea-raiding has occurred in most parts of the world throughout history, but our popular stereotype of pirates has been defined by one historical moment: the period from the 1660s to the 1730s, the so-called "golden age of piracy."

The Caribbean and American colonies of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands\u2014where piracy surged across these decades\u2014are the main theater for buccaneering, but this is a global story. From London, Paris, and Amsterdam to Cura\xe7ao, Port Royal, Tortuga, and Charleston, from Ireland and the Mediterranean to Madagascar and India, from the Arabian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean.

Familiar characters like Drake, Morgan, Blackbeard, Bonny and Read, Henry Every, and Captain Kidd all feature here, but so too will the less well-known figures from the history of piracy, their crew-members, shipmates, and their confederates ashore; the men and women whose transatlantic lives were bound up with the rise and fall of piracy.

To explore this story is today\u2019s guest, Richard Blakemore, author of \u201cEnemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy.\u201d\xa0

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