Showing results for "The King" in Maritime History & Piracy

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER & THE TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF 2021 'Astonishing and compelling' Bernard Cornwell ‘This superb book is like a classical symphony, perfectly composed and exquisitely performed’ THE TIMES Books of the Year Follow bioarchaeologist Cat Jarman – and the cutting-edge...

Henry Avery of Devon pillaged a fortune from a Mughal ship off the coast of India and then vanished into thin air—and into legend. More ballads, plays, biographies and books were written about Avery’s adventures than any other pirate. His contemporaries crowned him "the pirate king" for pulling off the richest heist in pirate history and escaping with his head intact (unlike Blackbeard and his infamous Flying Gang). Avery was now the most wanted criminal on earth. To the authorities, Avery was the enemy of all mankind. To the people he was a hero.

It was an era when monopoly trading companies were the unofficial agents of European expansion, controlling vast numbers of people and huge tracts of land, and taking on governmental and military functions. The leaders of these trading enterprises exercised virtually unaccountable, dictatorial political power over millions of people.

Discover how history's only five-star admirals triumphed in World War II and made the United States the world's dominant sea power. Only four men in American history have been promoted to the five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet: William Leahy, Ernest King, Chester Nimitz, and William Halsey...

Brought to you by Penguin. Almost everyone has heard of the Vikings: scouring the coasts of Europe in their longships, with plunder and pillage. Those raiders were real and deserved their reputation, but in fact they were only ever a small minority of the Scandinavians. ‘Viking’ comes from...