Richard Blakemore – författare

Britain's emergence as one of Europe's major maritime powers has all too frequently been subsumed by nationalistic narratives that focus on operations and technology. This volume, by contrast, offers a daring new take on Britain's maritime past. It brings together scholars from a range of disciplines to explore the manifold ways in which the sea shaped British history, demonstrating the number of approaches that now have a stake in defining the discipline of maritime history. The chapters analyse the economic, social, and cultural contexts in which English maritime endeavour existed, as well as discussing representations of the sea. The contributors show how people from across the British Isles increasingly engaged with the maritime world, whether through their own lived experiences or through material culture. The volume also includes essays that investigate encounters between English voyagers and indigenous peoples in Africa, and the intellectual foundations of imperial ambition.

‘The Laws of all Nations … define & declare a Pirate to be an Enemy of Mankind … He is perhaps the only Criminal on Earth, whose crime cannot be absolutely pardoned … a Pirate is equally an Enemy and dangerous to all Societies … Piracy is in its self a complication of Treason, Oppression, Murder, Assassination, Robbery and Theft.’You know what a pirate is. You know how they dress, how they speak. If you think of the word ‘pirate’, you most probably think of black flags and peg legs, cutlasses and cannon, walking the plank and buried treasure. These stereotypes are familiar and entertaining, but they aren’t the whole truth.Or, perhaps, they were never true at all.From their origins and identities to their everyday lives and exploits, Enemies of All is a voyage of discovery that investigates piracy’s incredible, and often unrecognised, impact on history. Socially, economically and politically, pirates moulded European empires as they rose to global power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They shaped our modern world and left behind troubling legacies.You will never see pirates in the same way again.

This volume boldly reinterprets Britain's maritime history through multidisciplinary scholarship, exploring how the sea fundamentally shaped British development.