I like pirate books, so Colin Woodard's The Republic of Pirates immediately caught my eye. (So did the wordy subtitle: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down.)

For the purposes of this book, Woodard focuses solely on the Golden Age of Piracy. Although generally the Golden Age runs through the history books from the 1650s into the 1730s, Woodard narrows his lens to a particularly active 10-year span, from 1715 to 1725. Consequently, famous pirates such as Henry Morgan, William Kidd and William Dampier are not discussed beyond occasional brief mentions, as they came from an earlier age. Rather, the book focuses on the pirates Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch and Charles Vane, as well as less famous men such as Benjamin Hornigold, Henry Jennings, Paulsgrave Williams and, to a lesser extent, the likes of John "Calico Jack" Rackham, Anne Bonney and Stede Bonnet.

He also spends a lot of ink on Woodes Rogers, a privateer who suffered a lot of bad luck in his early days -- including some horrific injuries -- but ended up taking on the pirate scourge on behalf of the English king as governor of the Bahamas.

The Republic of Pirates is an extremely comprehensive book, well researched using, as much as possible, primary sources -- letters, ship's logs, contemporary newspaper accounts, etc. -- rather than the influential but less reliable sources such as the 1724 publication, A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, the author of which is identified only by a pseudonym, Captain Charles Johnson, who probably is not Daniel Defoe as many people have speculated over the years.

It's a fascinating look at a fascinating period in world history, a time when news traveled slowly and ships at sea -- as well as many remote colonies -- were largely on their own when danger threatened. Readers will learn a great deal of the backstory of Rogers as well as prominent pirates of the age. Woodard also provides a great deal of biographical information on the people featured here, as well as an in-depth analysis of the circumstances -- many of which were sociopolitical -- that led to the rise of piracy. He also describes tactics and strategies, bold maneuvers and missteps, friendships and conflicts that arose between desperate and often ruthless men. (Although, surprisingly, more pirates than you might expect treated their captives quite well, threatening violence as a means of intimidation but rarely following through.

History can be dry, tedious stuff, but Woodard has done an excellent job putting the Golden Age of Piracy into its proper context and giving readers a fairly clear understanding of who they were, why they did what they did, how they got started and how they ended up. Anyone who is interested, like me, in this subject should definitely seek out this book.