The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates

Reviews - Books
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates - Review
By Cynthia Kirkeby
Aug 18, 2007, 08:53 PST

Pirates have fascinated us for centuries and the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films have fueled that fascination. Does The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates have anything of interest for pirate aficionados?

I must admit that I have avoided the Idiot Guides over the past few years on basic principles. I really hate the name of the series. For me there has always been something fundamentally wrong with telling your brain that you're an idiot. After all, the brain is basically a big computer, and GIGA still rules - garbage in garbage out. Hence, I've avoided books that give me bad input right off the bat in their titles. With that,"dfall said, I was intrigued enough to overcome my aversion to the series to take a look at The Complete Idiots Guide to Pirates, and I'm quite happy that I did.

This is a comprehensive book on everything pirate. You can learn how pirates first joined ranks, and how kings and queens used them to their advantage. The Complete Idiots Guide to Pirates, shows you what it would have taken to join a pirate crew, what life was like aboard ship, and whose colors you should work beneath.

Throughout the book there are little boxes, for Knowing the Ropes, Dead Men Tails, Pirate Yarns, and Treasure Chests.

Knowing the Ropes gives you the definition of pirate terms such as Broadside "also known as a broadsheet, was a large sheet of paper printed on one side posted for everyone to read."
Dead Men's Tales includes tidbits such as an excerpt from Blackbeard's ship's log that Jack Sparrow would understand. "Such a day, rum all out- Our company somewhat sober."
Pirate Yarns is the myth-busting part of the book. An example explains that "[t]he majority of buccaneers were French. In fact the term buccaneer comes from the French word boucaniers, meaning smokers of meat." Although they don't explain how that became associated with a gentleman pirate.
Treasure Chests give you all sorts of little tidbits that don't fit into the other categories, such as the fact that casting the ship's name on the cannon barrels continued long after elaborate decoration declined and has ended up helping archaeologists identify and date pirate ships from the era.

This book truly has everything you never knew you wanted to know about pirates. Its layout makes it very accessible and the writing is engaging and fun. This is a highly recommended book for every wannabe Jack Sparrow, Will Turner or Elizabeth Swann.