Republic of Pirates Blog

NBC picks up series based on Republic of Pirates

2012-06-01T11:28:16Z

Regular readers of my personal blog may recall that my third book, The Republic of Pirates, has been in development as a potential NBC television drama, produced by Parkes / MacDonald (Gladiator, Men In Black).

Last month, NBC announced it is adding the drama -- now titled Crossbones -- to next year's schedule. Deadline reported the straight-to-series order will be written by Neil Cross of BBC's Luther fame, with an initial run of ten episodes.

NBC has posted a description of the show at their website, along with some preliminary art. (Tagline: "The True Legend of Blackbeard").

As fans of the book know, Repu blic of Pirates tells the true story of the greatest pirate gang of all time, the golden age pirates who operated out of the Bahamas between 1715 and 1720 and are responsible for nine-tenths of all of our pirate pop culture imagery. The gang -- which included Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet -- founded a rogue state based at Nassau and, for a time, severed the commerce of three empires and threatened their colonies with dislocation, invasion, and rebellion.

For those wanting to learn more about these pirates, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, Nook, audiobook, Spanish and Danish editions. Links to all can be found at this page on the Republic of Pirates website.

Republic of Pirates in Wired Magazine

2012-03-03T15:08:10Z

The new issue of Wired Magazine has a special section on pirates, and Republic of Pirates makes cameos in two articles within.

In one, Mary H.K. Choi asks if "Freelancers are the New Pirates" -- as a lifelong freelancer, I hope the answer really is 'yes' -- and includes some of my comment from our interview on the golden age pirates of the Bahamas, the subject of my book.

A second piece looks at the three pirate-related television series now in development in the United States, including NBC's "Republic of Pirates." Angus Konstram provides some historian's comment on the settings and subjects of all three.

Talking with National Geographic about how pirates talked

2011-09-19T21:22:47Z

It's Talk Like A Pirate Day again, and everyone is coming up with their best effort at "arrrr" puns. (Today's leader: Where do pirates like to go on vacation? Arrrrrrgentina!)

But how did pirates really talk? And did some of them really say "Arrr"?

National Geographic interviewed me on the topic this morning, on account of my having written The Republic of Pirates. Their piece is now up on their site for those who arrrrrr interested.

Republic of Pirates - the NBC drama?

2011-09-10T12:27:56Z

You may have seen news accounts stating that a potential television series based on , has been sold to NBC by Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Co-written by Jim Hart (Hook, Contact, Dracula) and Amanda Wells and executive produced by Parkes/MacDonald (Gladiator, Men In Black, Minority Report), Ted Gold and Tom Fontana (Oz, Homicide: Life on the Streets, St. Elsewhere), the drama is apparently titled -- to my pleasure -- . broke the news and these details with this in late June.

Deadline reports it is the first drama buy for this development cycle by the new president of creative at NBC, Bob Greenblatt (Six Feet Under). As fans of the book know, Repu blic of Pirates tells the true story of the greatest pirate gang of all time, the golden age pirates who operated out of the Bahamas between 1715 and 1720 and are responsible for nine-tenths of all of our pirate pop culture imagery. The gang -- which included Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet -- founded a rogue state based at Nassau and, for a time, severed the commerce of three empires and threatened their colonies with dislocation, invasion, and rebellion.

For those wanting to learn more about these pirates, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, Nook, audiobook, Spanish and Danish editions. Links to all can be found at this page on the Republic of Pirates website. As this blog is cursed to be hosted via the horrid MovableType platform, most updates regarding the book are now posted at its Facebook page.

Republic of Pirates Facebook page

2011-02-05T16:35:12Z

I've created a Facebook page for Republic of Pirates, for those wanting to keep up on the latest Golden Age piracy discoveries, discussions, and the like. Do come join.

Sadly, this blog is currently trapped in the mire that is MovaableType v.3.2. If I ever get some spare time to figure out how to rescue it, I'll update it more often.

Talking Pirates in Camden, Maine, April 22

2010-04-06T21:51:39Z

I'll be giving a talk about Maine and the Golden Age Pirates at the Camden Public Library in Camden, Maine on April 22nd, starting at 6:30 pm.

As readers of the Republic of Pirates know, the Bahama-based pirate gang frequented out-of-the-way, thinly settled, Indian-war-ravaged places like Maine and North Carolina to hide out from the law after blockading major ports. Documentary evidence proves several visited Cape Elizabeth, Damariscove, and Monhegan Island, and there's reason to believe somebody set up camp in Machias, though it wasn't Sam Bellamy.

If you live in or near Midcoast Maine, come on by and say hello.

Radio silence explained

2010-01-02T16:54:27Z

Readers ask why I haven't been updating my pirate blog, so I wanted to put forth an explanation:

MovableType, from which this blog is composed, is just terrible! I have been intending to spend the time to learn how to export the site to another medium, but with book and journalism projects (and my other blog) I just haven't had a chance.

One of my New Years' resolutions is to bring the Republic of Pirates blog into the 2010s. Please stay tuned.....

Talk Like a Pirate Day: my interview in USA Today

2009-09-19T15:58:25Z

Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and, in anticipation, a writer for USA Today contacted me a week or two ago to suggest "10 great places to swashbuckle down," the results of which are in today's paper.

I visited many of these locations while writing The Republic of Pirates: The True Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Sadly, there's not a lot left of the late 17th and early 18th century in the New World: hurricanes, fires, development, wars, and tropical decay wiped many locations off the map. Some of the places where one can best soak in the feel of the pirate era -- and walk in their footsteps -- are in Sarah Sekula's USA Today piece, and in more historical detail at my Republic of Pirates site, including Williamsburg and Cape Cod. There are also some additional ones, like Philadelphi a and Boston. One of these days I'll get around to adding other locations.

If you're curious about the relationship between Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean films and the lives and lifestyles of the actual pirates, you may enjoy this piece I wrote for the Christian Science Monitor when the most recent film came out.

Republic of Pirates in The New Yorker

2009-09-06T13:53:24Z

My most recent book, The Republic of Pirates, gets a mention in the new issue of the New Yorker, in Caleb Cain's review of Peter Leeson's Invisible Hook.

Mr. Cain's review provides a nice capsule history (and historiography) of piracy, and is itself the product of impressively thorough research. Take a look at his bibliographic blog posting and you'll see what I mean.

If you're interested in learning more about what I'm up to outside the world of piracy, check out World Wide Woodard.

El Imparcial on Republic of Pirates

2009-09-01T02:49:46Z

Yesterday's edition of the Madrid newspaper El Imparcial carried this review of the Spanish edition of my book, The Republic of Pirates. My Spanish is terrible, but from what the Google translator tells me, it sounds like they enjoyed it.

La republica de los piratas has been selling well and a paperback edition was recently released by Editoria Critica. The book - a thoroughly-researched history of the golden age pirates - is also available in Danish translation, as a Sony e-book, an Amazon kindlebook, a BBC America Audiobook, and in U.S. hardcover and paperback.

Talking Pirates at Our History Project

2009-08-08T19:22:08Z

My interview with the folks at the Georgia-based Our History Project podcast can now be heard over at their website. Hear all about the Bahama gang of Golden Age Pirates and how they influenced the early 17th century Atlantic world and subsequent pirate pop culture.

Pirate talk: Kennebunk, Maine, June 25

2009-06-23T11:40:33Z

If you happen to live in York County, Maine, I'll be speaking about the golden age pirates -- subject of my book, The Republic of Pirates -- at the Kennebunk Free Library this Thursday, June 25th and 6:30. (Kennebunk's Community Read this year is Treasure Island, and we're kicking things off with the tale of the pirates who inspired Robert Louis Stevenson.)

I'll also be speaking about my new book project in Boothbay Harbor on July 1st and on the past, present, and future of coastal Maine (topic of my previous book, The Lobster Coast) in Stonington, Maine on July 23. Lobster Coast is going to be Scarborough, Maine's Community Read this year, and I'll be speaking there the morning of September 26.

There's a full schedule of upcoming events at my website.

Interviews on parallels between Golden Age and modern Somali piracy

2009-05-03T20:44:23Z

With the pirates of Somalia in the news, I've been fielding a number of media inquiries about the parallels between the current piracy outbreak and the Golden Age Pirates. (The latter are the subject of my most recent book, The Republic of Pirates.)

My most recent interview is in today's edition of The Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the newspaper of record for a swath of Blackbeard country. I also spoke about pirates with The Christian Science Monitor on April 12 (the day the captain of the Maersk Alabama was freed) and last Tuesday with San Francisco's non-profit KPOO-FM.

Finally there's a sidebar on the Somali parallels with my feature in the current issue of Military History Quarterly.

-- Colin Woodard

Somali and Golden Age Pirates: the parallels

2009-04-13T12:25:59Z

The U.S. Navy successfully rescued the captain of an American-flagged cargo vessel from Somali pirates yesterday, ending a four-day standoff. Captain Richard Phillips was held hostage on a lifeboat after pirates seized and, later, lost control of the Maersk Alabama.

I was interviewed by The Christian Science Monitor about the possible historical lessons the official responses to the Golden Age Pirates might offer for the current situation. I described some of the extraordinary parallels between the Somali and Bahamas-based piracy outbreaks and the strategy the British successfully employed to defeat the infamous Flying Gang, described in my book, The Republic of Pirates.

-- Colin Woodard

Republic of Pirates en Español...in paperback

2009-04-07T19:59:39Z

The Spanish edition of my most recent book, The Republic of Pirates, is now available in paperback from Editorial Critica of Barcelona.

La Republica de los Piratas, released in hardcover last year, was excerpted in the Spanish daily La Razon and has received favorable attention from Madrid's El Cultura l magazine, the Madrid daily ABC, Argentina's Revista ñ, and Spain's sports paper AS. Now you can get it for less than €20.

The most thorough account of the lives of the great Caribbean pirates is also available in Danish and in English as a BBC America audiobook, an Amazon kindlebook, a Sony e-book, or in Harcourt hardcover or paperback.