A great walk in world of piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries, in the Atlantic.

Victor Suthren used the limited information on the "Dread Pirate Bart" and his life, and created not only a grat overview of his life, but he also depicted the pirate life perfectly. Captain Roberts is the perfect guide through this world of swords, gun, pillaging, and deadly confrontations at sea. It's colourful, engaging and addictive. I couldn't get enough of it. It's the perfect balance between fiction and history.

Get ready for a swashbuckling adventure! This book was fabulous and I absolutely LOVED it! Full of great information, and written around a fabulous story, get to know the King of the Pirates as never before!

Looking for a highly detailed book on piracy? Black Flag of the North is a well written book dedicated to Black Bart Roberts. One of the most successful pirates of all time, Roberts doesn't get nearly as much play in popular culture as he should. Victor Suthren is working to change that with this book.

Victor Suthren, author of “Black Flag of the North,” is the author of fourteen books, mainly historical non-fiction and sea adventure novels. A noted authority on the maritime experience, his recounting of the pirate era has a ring of authenticity using a solid foundation of extensive research. Make no mistake. These buccaneers that frolicked joyfully while defying the hardships and dangers of shipboard life were indeed criminals; plundering, stealing, burning, and either killing or capturing the crews of ships that belonged to others.

There was a vast difference of serving aboard government or commercial vessels and pirate ships. Usually a lack of discipline and certain freedoms of behavior were allowed aboard the vessels of buccaneers. Suthren spends a lot of time exploring those differences and they are considerable. Most notable were the spoils that were shared by piratical crews and the lack of a commissioned leader to administer strict discipline. The unfortunate conditions aboard, mainly uncomfortable quarters and lack of food and water, were suffered by all who chose the sea, whether military, commercial, or pirate. But pirates were noted for their boisterous behavior, drinking, and womanizing while ashore. In the end, that loose behavior closed the golden age of piracy.

Barthholomew Roberts, or Black Bart, as he became to be known, the subject of most of the book, was very successful in his brief reign, capturing over 400 vessels between 1719 and 1722. Most of the time he was not the brutal, dictatorial captain most pirate commanders are alleged to have been. He was tall and handsome, noble in his bearing, somewhat a dandy in his dress, and a skilled navigator. He was somewhat beneficent in his handling of captured vessels, although he never failed to extract every bit of loot that was available. He also tended towards violent retribution against those who tried to deceive him.

In February of 1722 during a monumental tropical storm off the African coast, Roberts’ brief career came to an end. As he attempted to outrun a British warship, an artillery broadside struck his vessel and he was nearly beheaded by grapeshot and debris. His ship was captured and most of his crew executed by British authorities.

I found this book to be most interesting and an entertaining read. The author is adept at bringing the seagoing atmosphere to life. His depictions of the lusty life of the pirate revive colorful images so often depicted in modern media and storybooks, yet the reader is reminded that it was not all jolly and lighthearted pleasure. Interesting account from a gifted historian.

Mr. Suthren has crafted a nice little work on piracy in the 17th and 18th Century Atlantic. As far as a biography of the "Dread Pirate Bart," this book does provide a general overview of his life. Due to the limited information available about his life, Mr. Suthren focuses on building the world that Captain Roberts lived in, and a harsh world it was, full of disease, violence, and the unforgiving sea. Across this sea sail draconian naval and merchant ships, equally brutal but more egalitarian pirates, and... proto-Canadian fisherman because this work had a Canadian publisher (this means that the Canadian coast plays a more prominent role than it would otherwise have, although this is a generally overlooked area in the general history of piracy). Overall this is a generally competent walk (or sail in this case) through the world of piracy, particularly in the early 1700s, with Captain Roberts acting as the readers guide the short, brutal, but occasionally marry life of a pirate.

This work has issues with repetition. This book has a problem with redundancy. The previous two sentences illustrate an odd problem that this book has, in spite of its relatively short length, with including repeated lines and very similar quotes that just drill in the same message. The first couple chapters focus on how difficult life at sea was at the time, but this is still repeatedly brought up in later chapters. At least four or five times the reader is reminded that the Royal Navy did not have standardized uniforms for officers until the 1750s.

Also, quotes by contemporary authors are a bit excessive. Marcus Rediker should probably be credited as a coauthor, his works seem to be quoted every few pages. On the plus side, this introduced me to Mr. Rediker, whose works I will now look into. On the downside, it doesn't speak highly of Mr. Suthren, even though he has written a generally engaging work.

Overall, I did enjoy this work as a nice little introduction to life at sea in the "Golden Age" of piracy. It is hampered by its repetitiveness and reliance on other authors but I did enjoy this book and plowed through it fairly quickly.