His story is fascinating, although the presentation of his life in Pirate Hunter: The Life of Captain Woodes Rogers is, perhaps, a bit drier than it should have been, given the richness of material.

Full credit to author Graham A. Thomas, however, for he has done an extraordinary job researching the life of Rogers, an adventurer whose life was spent largely at sea or in governance. Rogers was, first and foremost, a sea captain, an adventurer and explorer, a merchant, a privateer and, some would say, pirate before going straight and hunting pirates instead. He attempted (unsuccessfully) to clean out the pirates of Madagascar, and later was appointed governor of the Bahamas, where he devoted much of his terms there trying to root out pirates (more successfully this time) and improve the colony's defenses and economy.

I read this book slowly, because the information is presented more as textbook history than thrilling adventure narrative. I sometimes found myself bogged down by minutiae -- for instance, Thomas spends an unnecessary number of pages describing the trial of several pirates Rogers apprehended -- but I kept coming back to the book because I wanted to learn more about the man's life and legacy.

While Rogers himself is sometimes overlooked in early 18th-century history, he rubbed elbows with characters who are, perhaps, better known -- such as Alexander Selkirk, a castaway who inspired the story of Robinson Crusoe, and William Dampier, an explorer, slaver and pirate whose claim to fame is circumnavigating the globe not once but three times. There is not, it seems, a great deal of information available on Rogers' life; Thomas has pieced together quite a bit here in an educational format that I only wish was written with a bit more passion for the subject.