Rating: 
Summary: Footprints of a Wooden Leg.
Review: "Under the Black Flag" is a real pirate's treasure. For all those who want to know what was "real" and what "romance", here's your book.
Mr. Cordingly has performed a deep research on the subject and presents it in a very readable and interesting form. He has taken diaries, contemporary newspaper articles, personal letters and memoirs as a solid backdrop.
His study is centered mainly in the Caribbean theater, the East coast of North America and the Indian Ocean. He also gives glimpses of the Chinese pirates leaded by Ms. Cheng.
Every main issue is described: weaponry, tactics, vessels, flags, everyday life, treasures, pets and battles.
In its pages you'll find the life and deeds of famous characters as Henry Morgan, "Blackbeard", Captain Kidd, L'Ollonais, Calico Jack and many others not so well known.
A whole chapter is dedicated to women pirates including the adventures and misadventures of Mary Read and Anne Bonny.
Finally "romance" is addressed taking into account mainly movies on the subject.
As a bonus the book includes six maps of the different scenarios of pirate's campaigns; a glossary of sea terms; an extensive bibliography and several appendixes on relevant matters.
So brace yourselves and come aboard!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating: 
Summary: Pirates Ye Be Warned
Review: Ahoy, reader, the pirates you know today from movies and stories are not too far from the originals, but are wonderful and romanticized caricatures of the buccaneers and corsairs of the 18th century. This we learn from the excellent book Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly, in which the author tells the stories of the lives of real pirates of old. Cordingly goes into great color and detail about the reality of pirates and their history. In the first chapter, entitled Wooden Legs and Parrots, Cordingly describes the actual appearance of buccaneers and corsairs. From the stories of Robert Louis Stevenson we first accepted the image of pirates personified by Long John Silver and Captain Hook. Pirates were linked with, pirate maps, black schooners, tropical islands, and one legged seaman with parrots on their shoulders. Cordingly identifies peg legs, parrots, filth, and harsh captains wearing dashing clothes. Who were these lavishly-dressed, smelly, unkempt, vagabonds of the sea? David Cordingly catergorizes pirates in two ways. Buccaneers were pirates from the Carribean and Corsairs were pirates from the Mediteranean.He also goes into depth about specific people such as, Bartholomew Roberts, Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Henry Morgan, and Captain Kidd. In to battle and back to the sea, this is the life of a pirate; David Cordingly elaborated well on this fact in his book Under the Blak Flag. By reading his book you can tell he is an experienced writer and a more-than-credible authority on pirates. He uses sources and quotes very well in this book, and organizes the main points rather well. His writing style is easy to read and you find yourself being caught up in his stories of pirate history and legend. I found that on some points he strayed a little of subject and drew my attention away from the emediate points. Nonetheless I enjoyed his descriptions of the pirates' appearance, their background, and their history. I would suggest reading David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag for all those who idolize, ador, and dream about pirates.
Rating:
Summary: Jolly Roger of a good book
Review: Cordingly has done his homework on the subject of the pirates. The text is very informative, historically acurate, and an easy read.You will learn all there is to know about these sea rogues. The author seperates fact from fiction that helps paint a clearer picture of those who sailed under the black flag. He dispells a variety of myths that surround some of the most famous pirates including Blackbeard and Captain Kidd. Cordingly takes you back to a vanished age when pirates ruled the seas. You'll journey with them across the oceans and share in their adventures,living the life of a pirate. Tally Ho!!!
Rating:
Summary: The most accurate and best researched book on pirates
Review: David Cordingly's "Under the Black Flag, The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates" constitutes the best researhed book on pirate history I have ever read. The information provided about the lives of this notorious anti-heroes, the reality of the life among them and the world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is amazingly accurate, and backed up with an extensive bibliography and footnotes. For those interested in pirate history throughout the ages, and specially the Golden Age of Piracy, this book constitutes a fundamental tool for understanding the pirate reality. When uncovering how the real people like Edward Teach and Calico Jack were, this book has no equal. Cordingly separates the myths from the real individuals behind them, proving that the reality is much more interesting than the romance, when uncovered. At the same time, the author discusses how the myths surrounding Blackbeard, the Women Pirates or Kidd's treasure, were formed and have survived through the years, becoming important elements of popular culture. Cordingly establishes why in our hearts, pirates were not sadistic villans, but rather "...romantic outlaws living far from civilization on some distant sunny shore," something most of us would dream to be.
Rating:
Summary: The smell of burning merchantmen in the morning....
Review: Ee done a fine job on this ere book, Mr. Cordingly.
Okay, I won't do the entire review in costume, but having just watched the incomparable Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean, I'm definitely in a piratical frame of mind. Arrrrrr.
This is a superb piece of research, and while it can be a little dry and academic in places, for those of us who have a pirate thing going on, David has done us proud with this powerhouse of information.
As other shipmates have mentioned, he also includes Mary Read and Ann(e) Bonny, who were part of Calico Jack Rackham's crew - with Bonny being his common law wife.
Any of you who have seen the Depp classic, will remember that when you see the Black Pearl's Jolly Roger flag unfurled, it is the unmistakable skull and crossed swords of Calico Jack. When I put my company Five Ships Ltd together (www.fiveships.com) some years ago, we adopted Rackham's flag as our company logo. Arrrrrrrr.... Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus - King That Was, King That Will Be.
One of the few omissions from David's book is the fact that the pirate skull and crossed bones/swords is actually the Ancient Egyptian sign of Osiris Risen, with all of its rebirth/resurrection imagery. For the very same reasons, it was the battle flag of the Knights Templar, and when the Templar fleet escaped from La Rochelle as the Pope and the French King moved against the Templars in 1307, they flew the skull and bones as an act of defiance.
Still, this is a superb book, if a trifle conventional, and an absolutely essential purchase for those of us who love the smell of burning merchantmen in the morning... Smells like victory...
Rating:
Summary: Let me tell you!!!!
Review: First of all you should all know that I am a pirate. I have a gold tooth and I love loot. This is an amazing look at the history of my people. It does an excellent job of explaining anything you want to know about the subject (do you know the difference between a buccaneer and a corsair?). It is consistently entertaining throughout. I hope you will pick up this book even if you are only slightly interested in the subject because my pirate culture is often misunderstood and David Cordingly shows the reality behind many popular misconceptions and effectively bridges the gap between your working stiff life and my slackerly, rip-roaring, booty lovin', torso stabbin' vagrant lifestyle. Be ye warned, however, this book will make you want to join our lofty ranks and most likely you will not survive the attempt.
Rating:
Summary: Finally an interesting history book!
Review: For anyone that's interested in the lifestyles of pirates, this is your book. This book is both a good read and informative. Almost everything you want to know is compiled here. I'm currently writing a novel about pirates, and this book is a wonderful reference. It goes into detail about pirate myths and truths, why we think of them the way we do, and what life was REALLY like for these swashbuckling blackguards. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Under the Black Flag & Loving It
Review: I really loved this book! It was so detailed and gave exclusive accounts of pirates stealing from pirates and of how they had trials, and were executed, marooned, tortured, fought in battle, and anything you could think of. Cordingly explained things so easily and in great detail that he kept you reading and wanting to know more. It was non stop action and of course some romance, but most importantly Cordingly told the facts, and not made up stories.
Rating:
Summary: Well done, and well told
Review: It is difficult to find intelligent, well written, historically accurate accounts on such broad (yet obscure) topics as piracy on the high seas. It is even more difficult to find ones whose style doesn't dull the compelling nature of the institution. Cordingly however, is able to put forth to his readers a refined historical account, that is long on both drama and accuracy. This book fills a gap, on the study of pirates, that existed between the overly scholarly and the overly sensational, giving both the history buff and the mildly curious a window into an otherwise difficult subject to research and report on. But unlike most historical works, there is no loss of romance, proof that history doesn't need the added flare of a coffee table publication if the humanity of the subject is stressed over the plain, dry facts. The lives of these sea-roving vagabonds are enough to lure the reader further into Cordingly's pages, but his style is enough to keep you loving it. ! I recommend this book wholeheartedly, especially to those who have never read any such account on the true history of piracy.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and informative overview of piracy
Review: This book gives an overview of the lives of the pirates of the 1700's (mostly). It covers the careers and untimely demises of the most famous (Capt. Kidd, Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Black Bart Roberts), talks about a number of less famous pirates, and covers some of the semilegal (depending on your nationality) exploits of the privateers (like Capt. Morgan). The book deliberately limits itself to those pirates associated with the Atlantic Ocean/Caribbean Sea, although many of these pirates also operated in the Indian or Pacific Ocean, so there is a wide variety of locales to compliment the wide variety of people. The descriptions of the pirate life and details of their exploits are well written, using a number of primary sources (logbooks, journals, newpaper articles). They give a good feel for the "reality" of life among the pirates. But what of the "romance"? It's here as well, comparing the real pirates of history with our modern romantic view of pirates, based on Erol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks, Captain Hook and Long John Silver, and the Pirates of Penzance. It is an entertaining and informative book, especially for someone (like myself) whose previous exposure to piracy has been through Stephen Spielberg's movies and Sid Meier's computer games. I suspect the serious naval historian may find the text someone cursory, but still useful because of the wealth of references. Anyone interested in a general overview on pirates (and privateers) in this era should find this book an enjoyable read.
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