Women Pirates: And the Politics of the Jolly Roger

Rating:
Summary: Not the best work on pirates
Review: This book is by far not the best book that I have read on pirates. It is written more for a woman who is feeling bad about her sexuality. The book is an effort to list every woman, fictional and otherwise, that has ever had a role in maritime history. The book starts out by talking about ancient gods (yes, female gods) that related to the sea. This discussion is better saved for a book on mythology because it was a good summary of female gods but it did not pertain to pirates. The book moves on and talks about female pirates through the ages all over the world. While this is somewhat informative I believe that the significance of these woman pirates in history is way overstated. Female pirates were very few and far between, and many really shouldn't be considered pirates. The best part of the book was the discussion of the most netorious women pirates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny. These two chapters were interesting and informative but they were also burried in the book. I would suggest a book that includes but is not limited to woman pirates because the fact is that there were very few woman pirates in history. The last quarter of the book focused on the politics of the Jolly Roger. This section helped to save the book but it often repeated and contradicted the first part of the book. I noticed a few inaccurate statements in this section, but on the whole this section was well done. This book is not a total waste of time, but it gets off topic and overstates things in my opinion. Women have played a huge part in world history, just not as pirates.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best work on pirates
Review: This book is by far not the best book that I have read on pirates. It is written more for a woman who is feeling bad about her sexuality. The book is an effort to list every woman, fictional and otherwise, that has ever had a role in maritime history. The book starts out by talking about ancient gods (yes, female gods) that related to the sea. This discussion is better saved for a book on mythology because it was a good summary of female gods but it did not pertain to pirates. The book moves on and talks about female pirates through the ages all over the world. While this is somewhat informative I believe that the significance of these woman pirates in history is way overstated. Female pirates were very few and far between, and many really shouldn't be considered pirates. The best part of the book was the discussion of the most netorious women pirates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny. These two chapters were interesting and informative but they were also burried in the book. I would suggest a book that includes but is not limited to woman pirates because the fact is that there were very few woman pirates in history. The last quarter of the book focused on the politics of the Jolly Roger. This section helped to save the book but it often repeated and contradicted the first part of the book. I noticed a few inaccurate statements in this section, but on the whole this section was well done. This book is not a total waste of time, but it gets off topic and overstates things in my opinion. Women have played a huge part in world history, just not as pirates.