Many peoples throughout history have fought pirates, writes Alfred Bradford in Flying the Black Flag. Some have lost and some have won. We should learn from their experience. From Odysseus—the original pirate of literature and lore—through Blackbeard and the feared pirates of the Spanish Main, his book reveals the strategies and methods pirates used to cheat, lie, kill, and rob their way into the historical record, wreaking terror in their bloody wakes. The story begins with a discussion of Piracy and the Suppression of Piracy in the Ancient World. It details, for example, how the Illyrians used pirate vessels to try to wrest control of the Adriatic Coast from the mighty Romans, as well as how the intrepid Vikings went from pirate raids to the conquest of parts of Western Europe. Moving into the 17th century and to the New World, Bradford depicts the golden age of the pirates. Here are the Spanish Buccaneers and the fabled Caribbean stronghold of Tortuga. Here are Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, and their fearsome counterparts. But piracy was hardly just a Western phenomenon. The Barbary Pirates looks East to examine the struggle between Christian and Muslim in the Mediterranean, while To the Shores of Tripoli details the American conflict with the Barbary Pirates. It reveals the lessons of a war conducted across a great distance against a nebulous enemy, a war in which victory was achieved only by going after the pirates' sponsor. On the South China Coast, we meet the first Dragon Lady, leader of Chinese pirates. As intriguing as these tales of the past are in and of themselves, the stories and their swashbuckling villains hold lessons for us even today. In Conclusions and Reflections, Bradford gathers all of the chords together, discussing the conditions under which piracy arises, the conditions under which pirates organize and become more powerful, and the methods used to suppress piracy. Finally, he examines similarities between pirates and terrorists—and whether the lessons learned from the wars against pirates of the past might also apply to modern day terrorists.

“This is the most authoritative and highly literate account of these pernicious people that I have ever read.”—Patrick O'Brian “[A] wonderfully entertaining history of pirates and piracy . . . a rip-roaring read . . . fascinating and unexpected.”—Men's Journal This rollicking account of the golden age of piracy is packed with vivid history and high seas adventure. David Cordingly, an acclaimed expert on pirates, reveals the spellbinding truth behind the legends of Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Sir Francis Drake, the fierce female brigands Mary Read and Anne Bonny, and others who rode and robbed upon the world's most dangerous waters. Here, in thrilling detail, are the weapons they used, the ships they sailed, and the ways they fought—and were defeated. Under the Black Flag also charts the paths of fictional pirates such as Captain Hook and Long John Silver. The definitive resource on the subject, this book is as captivating as it is supremely entertaining. Praise for Under the Black Flag “[A] lively history . . . If you've ever been seduced by the myth of the cutlass-wielding pirate, consider David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag.”—USA Today, “Best Bets” “Engagingly told . . . a tale of the power of imaginative literature to re-create the past.”—Los Angeles Times “Entirely engaging and informative . . . a witty and spirited book.”—The Washington Post Book World “Plenty of thrills and adventure to satisfy any reader.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Vivid stories trace careers of such notorious brigands as Captain Kidd and Edward (Blackbeard) Teach, along with those of many lesser-known pirates. Riveting accounts will be treasured by historians and maritime enthusiasts alike.

0900 hours, 11th September, 2012. Darkness cloaks the American Embassy in Libya. The flag is flying at half-mast, to commemorate the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on America. Without warning one hundred heavily armed fighters emerge from the night and blast the Embassy gates asunder. The savage siege of the American Embassy in Libya has begun. The mass of Al Qaeda gunmen surge through the shattered gateway and open fire. Their aim is to kill all Americans based at the Embassy, and to capture their prize, Ambassador J Christopher Stevens, alive. This is a carefully-planned attack, using overwhelming firepower and numbers. The handful of lightly armed defenders stand little chance ... Unless ... On the streets outside the Embassy one man steps out of the shadows. British soldier Sgt Morgan Jones carries with him one Browning pistol, and thirty rounds of ammo - the only weaponry he can lay his hands on amidst the chaos of battle. But he also carries with him a total conviction to rescue his American brothers-in arms, or die trying. Jones knows there’s a US Navy SEAL force based at a secret CIA annex, a short drive away. But will they make it to the Embassy in time, through streets awash with enemy fighters? Only he knows the secret ways in to the complex, and he will never be able to live with himself if he leaves his American brothers hanging. So begins the rescue mission of a lifetime, an epic from which few will emerge unscathed. Lone Warrior is an edge of the seat rollercoaster ride of savagery and courage beyond measure. It is the Black Hawk Down of the 21st Century.

“How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pondered in the aftermath of the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi that left American ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion shows how it could have happened and why it did happen. It happened because in supporting the Libyan rebellion against Muammar al-Qaddafi, America and its allies, in effect, changed sides in the war on terror, securing the victory of some of the very Islamic extremist forces that they had been fighting for the previous decade. The result is a Libya that is today under the sway of heavily-armed jihadist brigades that make no secret of their allegiance to al-Qaeda, proudly flying the al-Qaeda flag in broad daylight in Benghazi and other Libyan cities. Moreover, as the September 11 Benghazi attacks make clear, if America reversed course in Libya in order to join forces with jihadists, the jihadists remain exactly as they ever were, with the same ideology and the same hatred of America. Exploding the myth of NATO’s “humanitarian intervention,” The Jihadist Plot tells the real story of the Libyan rebellion. It traces the itineraries of some of the notorious veterans of international jihad who served as the rebellion’s leading commanders and strategists and shows how NATO helped to create a new jihadist hero at the siege of Sirte. And it reveals that long before the onset of the so-called Arab Spring, Libya’s own al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had devised a plan to bring down the Qaddafi regime using some of the classic methods of jihadist terror: a plan that would be put into practice in the rebellion of February 2011.

e-artnow presents to you this unique collection of pirate tales, sea adventure novels and true stories of the most notorious pirates:_x000D_ True Pirates of the Caribbean:_x000D_ The King of Pirates: Of Captain Avery, And his Crew_x000D_ Captain Martel_x000D_ Captain Teach, alias Blackbeard_x000D_ Edward England_x000D_ Charles Vane_x000D_ Rackam_x000D_ Mary Read_x000D_ Anne Bonny_x000D_ John Bowen..._x000D_ The Trial of the Pirates at Providence_x000D_ The Pirate Gow _x000D_ The Pirates of Panama…_x000D_ Novels & Stories:_x000D_ Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)_x000D_ The Pirate (Walter Scott)_x000D_ Blackbeard: Buccaneer (Ralph D. Paine)_x000D_ Pieces of Eight (Richard Le Gallienne)_x000D_ The Gold-Bug (Edgar Allan Poe)_x000D_ Jack London:_x000D_ Hearts of Three_x000D_ Tales of the Fish Patrol_x000D_ Daniel Defoe:_x000D_ Robinson Crusoe_x000D_ Captain Singleton_x000D_ Jules Verne:_x000D_ The Mysterious Island_x000D_ Facing the Flag_x000D_ The Dark Frigate (Charles Boardman Hawes)_x000D_ Peter Pan and Wendy (J. M. Barrie)_x000D_ The Dealings of Captain Sharkey (Arthur Conan Doyle)_x000D_ The Pirate (Frederick Marryat)_x000D_ The Madman and the Pirate (R. M. Ballantyne)_x000D_ The Pirate City (R. M. Ballantyne)_x000D_ Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader (R. M. Ballantyne)_x000D_ Captain Boldheart& the Latin-Grammar Master (Charles Dickens)_x000D_ The Master Key (L. Frank Baum)_x000D_ A Man to His Mate (J. Allan Dunn)_x000D_ The Isle of Pirate's Doom (Robert E. Howard)_x000D_ Queen of the Black Coast (Robert E. Howard)_x000D_ James Fenimore Cooper:_x000D_ Afloat and Ashore_x000D_ Homeward Bound_x000D_ The Red Rover_x000D_ The Rose of Paradise (Howard Pyle)_x000D_ The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)_x000D_ The Ghost Pirates (William Hope Hodgson)_x000D_ The Offshore Pirate (F. Scott Fitzgerald)_x000D_ Harry Collingwood:_x000D_ A Pirate of the Caribbees_x000D_ The Pirate Island_x000D_ Among Malay Pirates (G. A. Henty)_x000D_ Great Pirate Stories (Joseph L. French)_x000D_ Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain (Maturin Murray Ballou)_x000D_ The Dark Frigate (Charles B. Hawes)_x000D_ Kidd the Pirate (Washington Irving) _x000D_ The Death Ship (William Clark Russell)_x000D_ The Iron Pirate (Max Pemberton)…

On the eve of Germany's surrender in May 1945, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz commanded thousands of loyal and active men of the U-boat service. Still fully armed and unbroken in morale, enclaves of these men occupied bases stretching from Norway to France, where cadres of U-boat men fought on in ports that defied besieging Allied troops to the last. At sea U-boats still operated on a war footing around Britain, the coasts of the United States and as far as Malaya. Following the agreement to surrender, these large formations needed to be disarmed - often by markedly inferior forces - and the boats at sea located and escorted into the harbours of their erstwhile enemies. Neither side knew entirely what to expect, and many of the encounters were tense; in some cases there were unsavoury incidents, and stories of worse. For many Allied personnel it was their first glimpse of the dreaded U-boat menace and both sides were forced to exercise considerable restraint to avoid compromising the terms of Germany's surrender. One of the last but most dramatic acts of the naval war, the story of how the surrender was handled has never been treated at length before. This book uncovers much new material about the process itself and the ruthless aftermath for both the crews and their boats.

For thousands of years, pirates have terrorized the ocean voyager and the coastal inhabitant, plundered ship and shore, and wrought havoc on the lives and livelihoods of rich and poor alike. Around these desperate men has grown a body of myths and legends—fascinating tales that today strongly influence our notions of pirates and piracy. Most of these myths derive from the pirates of the “Golden Age,” from roughly 1655 to 1725. This was the age of the Spanish Main, of Henry Morgan and Blackbeard, of Bartholomew Sharp and Bartholomew Roberts. The history of pirate myth is rich in action, at sea and ashore. However, the truth is far more interesting. In The Golden Age of Piracy, expert pirate historian Benerson Little debunks more than a dozen pirate myths that derive from this era—from the flying of the Jolly Roger to the burying of treasure, from walking the plank to the staging of epic sea battles—and shows that the truth is far more fascinating and disturbing than the romanticized legends. Among Little’s revelations are that pirates of the Golden Age never made their captives walk the plank and that they, instead, were subject to horrendous torture, such as being burned or hung by their arms. Likewise, epic sea battles involving pirates were fairly rare because most prey surrendered immediately. The stories are real and are drawn heavily from primary sources. Complementing them are colorful images of flags, ships, and buccaneers based on eyewitness accounts. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

This is the untold story of the women military aviators of the 1970s and 1980s who kicked open the door to fly in combat in 1993—along with the story of the women who paved the way before them. In 1993, U.S. women earned the right to fly in combat, but the full story of how it happened is largely unknown. From the first women in the military in World War II to the final push in the 1990s, The Fly Girls Revolt chronicles the actions of a band of women who overcame decades of discrimination and prevailed against bureaucrats, chauvinists, anti-feminists, and even other military women. Drawing on extensive research, interviews with women who served in the 1970s and 1980s, and her personal experiences in the Air Force, Eileen Bjorkman weaves together a riveting tale of the women who fought for the right to enter combat and be treated as equal partners in the U.S. military. Although the military had begun training women as aviators in 1973, by a law of Congress they could not fly in harm’s way. Time and again when a woman graduated at the top of her pilot training class, a less-qualified male pilot was sent to fly a combat aircraft in her place. Most of the women who fought for change between World War II and today would never fly in combat themselves, but they earned their places in history by strengthening the U.S. military and ensuring future women would not be denied opportunities solely because of their sex. The Fly Girls Revolt is their story.