A compact yet comprehensive work by Peter Lehr, one of the world's leading experts on maritime security and counterterrorism. Lehr avoids the romanticization of pirate life common in modern culture and examines robbery as a business, exploring the interests behind it. The author analyzes the motives for choosing this risky “profession” and the economic causes of the phenomenon, highlights the role of the state in encouraging piracy throughout history: from the privateers sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth I to modern robbers operating off the coast of Africa.
In three parts of the book, Lehr gives a detailed and large-scale picture of the emergence, development and decline (albeit incomplete) of world piracy - talks about crusader pirates, exotic wokou and orang laut, buccaneers and privateers, pirate ports and lairs, raids on cities and the “good life”, robotic ships, rules of conduct for hostages and advanced strategies for protecting ships from attack.
Pirates from Hollywood films usually They would jump onto the deck of the ship they were attacking to start a desperate fight with rapiers, sabers, daggers, pistols, and muskets. But real pirates mostly hoped to avoid a bloody skirmish and relied on 'shock and awe,' as we would say today, trying to subdue their prey without firing a shot.
