Talking pirates with Press Herald Live, May 13, 7pm

For subscribers of the Portland Press Herald: I'll be talking with colleague Katherine Lee about the real pirates of the Caribbean, what it was like to write and research Republic of Pirates, and the experience of being an on-camera expert for Netflix's recent hit docudrama series "Lost Pirate Kingdom." Should be fun and I'll be answering audience questions as well.

The pandemic is still on so this is a virtual event. Good news is you don't have to travel, but you do need to subscribe. But, hey, if you do it's free and you get to support local journalism here in Maine. 

It all kicks off online this Thursday, May 13 at 7pm. Registration details here.

What Netflix's "Lost Pirate Kingdom" Got Right (and wrong) About the Golden Age Pirates

I greatly enjoyed being an on-camera expert for Netflix's hit docudrama series "Lost Pirate Kingdom," which essentially tells the story of the Golden Age pirate gang related in my 2007 work of history, The Republic of Pirates.

But how accurate was the six-part series, which has reignited interest in Blackbeard and his peers in the Flying Gang?

I wrote up my thoughts on that over at Talking Points Memo. Hope you enjoy it and the series.

Where to find signed books in coastal Maine, March 31 edition

More than a year into the pandemic I was realizing that I haven't set foot south of Portsmouth, New Hampshire since February 2020, despite having a book come out. But things are slowly loosening up as vaccinations increase and in the past week or two I've been able to sign books at a number of bookstores on the coast of Maine, where I live.

In support of local indie bookstores, I thought I'd advertise where those signed copies are right now. Proceeding from southwest to northeast....

[Update, 4/16/21: In Newington, N.H.'s Barnes & Noble as of today. (The trilogy, Lobster Coast, and Republic of Pirates.)]

In Portland: at Sherman's on Exchange Street (The American Nations trilogy and Lobster Coast) and Longfellow Books (all of them.)

In Freeport: at Sherman's. (The American Nations trilogy and Lobster Coast) 

In Brunswick: at Gulf of Maine Books. (Ditto)

In Augusta: at Barnes & Noble. (American Nations, Lobster Coast, Republic of Pirates, Union.)

[Update, 4/15/21: In Damariscotta at Sherman's (ditto).]

[Update, 4/30/21: In Camden at Owl & Turtle. (All save Ocean's End.)

In Belfast: at Left Bank Books. These copies:

In Bucksport: at BookStacks. (Union, American Nations, American Character.)

In Castine: at Compass Rose Books. These copies:

In Blue Hill: Blue Hill Books. These titles:

Bar Harbor: at Sherman's flagship store. This mountain of books:

Thanks for your support of your local bookstore, wherever you live.

Telling the pirates' story on Netflix's "Lost Pirate Kingdom"

Netflix's new historical docudrama story on the Caribbean pirates, "Lost Pirate Kingdom," came out Tuesday and is already a hit, standing at #3 of all titles on Netflix's US site, #4 for them in the UK and #1 in Denmark.

It essentially tells the story I revealed in my 2007 work of history The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and The Man Who Brought Them Down, and I appear throughout as one of their taking head experts. But the voice of the show is Derek Jacobi, appropriately enough, the actor who played the aging Duke of Windsor in The Crown, among other roles.

Hope you enjoy the six-episode series. For more on the real story of Blackbeard and his gang, do consider the book, which is also available in UK and Danish editions.

Talking pirates on a forthcoming Netflix series

A few months before the pandemic struck I travelled to a Manhattan studio to film an hours-long interview with a British production company working on a documentary-drama on the Bahamas-based pirate gang who are the subject of one of works of history, The Republic of Pirates.

I'm pleased to see that that series, for Netflix, is being released March 15th and is entitled "Lost Pirate Kingdom." Based on the trailer it should be a hoot.

If you find yourself hankering for more of Blackbeard and his gang's story, do consider checking out the book. And either way enjoy the show.

[Update, 3/15/21: Episode 1 out now.]

Talking pirates with Discovery's "Expedition Unknown" (before the pandemic)

At the end of August, long before the new coronavirus infected its first human, I was in Paris talking with Josh Gates, host of Discovery Channel's "Expedition Unknown" about the pirate Olivier La Bous and the legend of his treasure. Our interview was filmed at the city's Museum of Freemasonry, which is also the center of the order in France, with numerous temples in the basement.

The episode -- "The Fortune of the Buzzard" (S8:E6) -- premiered here in the US on March 11th, re--aired Sunday, and is available for streaming via your cable provider if you follow this link. Hope it brings some lighthearted respite to your family's bunker.

Was great fun hanging out with Gates -- who has very much the same personality when the cameras

aren't rolling as when the are -- and to share the story of one of the subjects of my history of the great Caribbean pirate gang, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. A couple caveats from our hours-long shoot that wound up on the proverbial cutting room floor: (a) the legend of the cipher, necklace and the gallows is a great story, but makes absolutely no sense when you think about it and; (b) if La Bous's treasure is out there, I think the environs of his former Madagascar hideout would be the place to look.

For those with an unhealthy interest in pirates like La Bous, I'm also a proponent of the theory that he -- not Sam Bellamy -- came to Machias in 1718 before continuing on to raid ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one I sketched out a few years ago for the Portland Press Herald.

My last pirate-related television production appearance was alongside Hilary Duff, of all people, on a dock in Bath, North Carolina, talking about Blackbeard for TLC's "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Talking the Republic of Pirates in, yes, Nassau, The Bahamas, Feb. 24

My third book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down is the most comprehensive, back-to-the-archives account of the most famous pirate outbreak in history, the one that's responsible for virtually all of our pirate pop culture imagery and the inspiration for the pirates of Robert Louis Stevenson and the Walt Disney Company.

That pirate gang was able to become as fearsome as it did because they had a fortified base, a pirate republic if you will, at Nassau in the failed British colony of the Bahamas, which had been sacked and destroyed by the enemy in the War of Spanish Succession. Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham, Stede Bonnet, Mary Read, Anne Bonny and many other infamous pirates gathered together there, protected by the repurposed fort, supported by a population of rogues, escaped slaves, and opportunists, and supplied by the unscrupulous merchants of Harbour Island. Its a remarkable tale from start to finish, and the book has inspired an NBC series (Crossbones with John Malkovich and Kate Foy) and Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which recreated early 18th century Nassau in great detail (and for which I served as a historical consultant.)

So it's with great pleasure to announce that on Monday, February 24, I'll be speaking on the pirates in Nassau at the Pirate Republic Brewery Taproom, located, appropriately enough, on Woodes Rogers Walk on a site that would have been smack in the middle of the old pirate village. It's at 6pm and free and open to the public. Parrots optional.

Speaking (a lot) about most everything at Star Island's Natural History Week, June 20-27

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be the annual speaker on Star Island, Isles of Shoals, for this year's Natural History Week, held June 20 to 27. [Update, 5/4/2020: Star Island's entire summer season has been cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic.]

Natural History Week - "Living in a Changing World" -- is held each year on the bucolic island, located off the coast of southern New Hampshire, but in a small archipelago that straddles the border with Maine. Attendees spend the whole week on the island, enjoying its beauty and nature by day, and attending daily talks by your truly and others. 

During the week I'll be speaking on:

* the crisis in the world's oceans (topic of my first book, Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas) and the warming of the Gulf of Maine (subject of a Portland Press Herald series I wrote that was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize.)

* the cultural and environmental history of coastal Maine (subject of my second book, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier) and a forthcoming Press Herald series tied to Maine's Bicentennial this year.

* the true story, reassembled from archival sources, of the great Caribbean pirate gang led by Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and others -- pirates who plied the waters of the Gulf of Maine as well as the Spanish Main. (A story told in The Republic of Pirates.)

* the reasons why the United Staes is polarized and paralyzed, which have their origins in the differences between the distinct colonial projects on the eastern and southwestern rims of what is now the United States, subject of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

* and perhaps American Character: The Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good and the new book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood, to be released June 16th, as well.

Registration information at their website, and further information at Star Island Corp's mother ship. I look forward to meeting those of you who decide to attend.

In France

I've been in France this week. I can't say too much about it, except that it involved a television shoot, the Museum of the Freemasons in Paris, and maybe something about a pirate treasure. More on this in the months to come.

[Update, 3/14/20: That's Josh Gates on my left, host of Discovery Channel's Expedition Unknown, who was preparing to head off to the Indian Ocean to try to find the pirate Olivier La Buse's purported treasure. The show, Season 8, Episode 6 -- "The Fortune of the Buzzard" -- premiered on Mar. 11 and can be found at Amazon Prime, your cable streaming service, and other outlets.]

Along the way, however, I discovered this brilliant contraption in a rural train station in Champagne, which I can share with abandon. Here is a country that takes cultural production seriously.

Also: it's strange to see Notre Dame in darkness, all approaches closed off for a block around, including bridges, plaza, and subway entrances. A catastrophe, that fire was.

On Blackbeard, 300 years after his death, in the New York Times

Republic of Pirates fans take note: 2018 has been the 300th anniversary of Woodes Rogers' landing at Nassau, marking the formal -- if tumultuous and uncertain -- end of the pirate republic, and Thursday was the anniversary of Blackbeard's death in a pitched battle with sailors of the Royal Navy.

I'm thankful that the New York Times opinion editors let me share my thoughts on the significance of this occasion -- and the reasons for Blackbeard's uninterrupted popularity -- in Friday's paper. It's a nice bookend to the tricentennial, a year I started in Bath, North Carolina, talking about the pirate and his death on an iced-in dock with Rogers' unlikely descendent, actress Hilary Duff.  Enjoy the piece.

Also on Thursday back in the U.K, the Bristol Post ran this piece on Blackbeard's real name (it's Edward Thatch, not Teach) based on an interview they conducted with me a few years back. Thatch's family was from the Bristol area, even if the latest evidence -- from researcher Baylus Brooks -- indicates he himself was likely born in Jamaica.

I last wrote on Blackbeard for Smithsonian a few years back, sharing new research by Mike Daniels on his final capture.

Talking American Nations with CityLab, Sen. Collins' Roe position with CSPAN

I recently spoke with CityLab's Laura Bliss about the American Nations framework, where it came from, and how I came to create it. Here's her piece, which appeared last week. (The framework has been getting renewed attention on account of a New York Times OpEd that appeared July 26.)

With a Supreme Court nomination struggle looming, all eyes remain on Republican Senate centrists Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Last CSPAN's Washington Journal about Collins' position on Roe v Wade and the nomination, and what outside legal experts have to say about it. You can find the clip here.

month I spoke with

I last appeared on CSPAN last summer, talking about American Character and The Lobster Coast with their mobile crew on their visit to the Portland, Maine area. Previously, they broadcast my full American Nations talk at Iowa State.

And to round matters out, I appeared in the UK's Bristol Post recently discussing pirates, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard's death. (This the subject of my third book, The Republic of Pirates.)

What did pirates look like? My Business Insider interview

The folks at Business Insider recently called to talk about what the Golden Age pirates really looked and acted like because, well, why not?

The interview is up over at their website, with a produced video to illustrate the conversation.

They reached out to me on account of my being the author of a detailed history of this pirate gang, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down, which is available in a bunch of foreign editions - UK, Poland, Spain, Hungary, China, Taiwan, Denmark, and Brazil, if you happen to live in one of those places.

Last week, Business Insider asked a bunch of Wall Street leaders what they recommended for summer reading, yielding a list of 22 books. Thanks to UBS Americas president Tom Naratil for including Republic of Pirates here as well.

Talking pirates with Hilary Duff on TLC's Who Do You Think You Are?

In an unlikely development, I recently returned to Blackbeard's Bath, North Carolina haunt to chat with actress Hilary Duff about one of her ancestors, the man responsible for the pirate's death 300 years ago this fall.

Duff was being whisked around the world for what became this week's episode of the cable television program "Who Do You Think You Are?" on TLC.; I was there as author of The Republic of Pirates, which tells the story of how Blackbeard came to be in Bath and how Duff's ancestor organized the expedition to kill him. The segment was shot on an unusually cold January morning -- so cold in fact that Bath Creek had frozen over, making boating impossible, so we spoke on a dock surrounded by

mirror-like ice.

Here's an extended clip of our conversation. The full episode -- S9:E4 -- is available here to US cable subscribers with TLC in their package.

Thanks to the excellent team at Shed Media for an enjoyable mid-winter dive into piracy.

I'll next be talking piracy in Nassau, site of the Bahamian pirate republic, in mid-July, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the pirates' downfall. Stay tuned for details. My next public talk is at the Chautauqua Institution in far western New York state July 3, on American Character.

Talking pirates on the Under the Crossbones podcast

Recently Phil Johnson, host of the Under the Crossbones podcast, contacted me and noted that we've next year will mark the 300th anniversary of Blackbeard's death in the Battle of Ocracoke Island. How time flies!

I talked to Johnson about Blackbeard, the Golden Age pirates, and how I researched my history of them, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Our conversation has just posed online for your pirate listening pleasure.

Thanks to Phil for his interest and hope you all enjoy.

Speaking on Blackbeard and the pirates, seacoast Georgia, Aug. 17

For those in and near the Georgia seacoast, I'll be speaking on Blackbeard and the golden age pirates this Thursday, August 17, at the Coastal Georgia Historical Society on St. Simons Island. It's the subject of my third book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down.

The event, part of their Chautauqua Lecture Series, kicks off at 6pm at the society's A.W Jones Event Center. The series has a subscription charge, details herein.

Hope to see you there.

On pirates in Maine in the Press Herald and on WCSH-6

By coincidence, I both wrote about and was interviewed about pirates in Maine last week.

Maine's NBC affiliates, WCSH-6 here in Portland and WLBZ-2 in Bangor, were curious about the legendary treasure of Jewell Island in Casco Bay. Captain Kidd is said to have left his mother lode there, so could it be true? No, I told them from a float on said bay, but some of the other pirates I wrote about in Republic of Pirates definitely did visit Casco Bay, so anything's possible, however unlikely. Here's the segment.

Those pirates belonged to Black Sam Bellamy's flotilla -- the vessels that survived a spring storm off Cape Cod in 1717, that is. By coincidence, an exhibit of artifacts and treasures from the wreck of Bellamy's flagship -- which didn't make it -- has opened here in Portland, and I have this story in the Maine Sunday Telegram about the pirates and the controversies surrounding the man who found the Whydah.

For those eager to learn more about Bellamy and the golden age pirates, consider my third book.

Talking pirates with CNN Travel

Earlier this week, I spoke with CNN Travel's London based writer Chris Scott about Henry Avery and the golden age Bahamian pirates, the subject of my third book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down.

Scott's piece on the "Real Pirates of the Caribbean" posted yesterday at CNN, and also features interviews with several other pirate researchers.

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the wreck of Sam Bellamy's Whydah, the capture of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, and many other key events for the golden age pirates. There's also another one of those silly Disney pirate movies coming out.

For more on Blackbeard, consider this Smithsonian cover story I wrote a couple of years ago on some new discoveries.

Republic of Pirates, now in China

A parcel of these arrived in the mail the other day: the handsome, simplified Chinese edition of The Republic of Pirates from Social Sciences Academic Press in Beijing. I'm pleased the book is now available in the world's most populous country. (The title there is apparently

海盗共和国:骷髅旗飘扬、民主之火燃起的海盗黄金年代 精装.)

For those in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, Republic of Pirates is also available in complex Chinese from Taipei's Business Weekly.

My only other title to be translated into Chinese is Ocean's End: Travels Through Endangered Seas, but I suspect that's now out of print.

UK discovers Republic of Pirates

The media is a fickle beast, and most especially the British print variety, which suddenly last week decided they needed breaking news about Blackbeard, the infamous pirate who died 298 years ago. Thus, out of the blue, some of the revelations my nine year old biography of Blackbeard and his gang, The Republic of Pirates, have been making headlines there.

It started with the Bristol Post, the daily in the city that may have been Blackbeard's port of birth. Someone there discovered the two-year old U.K edition of the book and, therein, that Blackbeard's real name was actually Edward Thatch, rather than Edward Teach as is commonly thought. I had an enjoyable conversation with reporter Tristan Cork, who wrote this piece, "Bristol pirate Blackbeard's real name was NOT Edward Teach, American historian conforms." He includes my full email response to his question on this score, for those wanting the details.

The next day, an editor for SWNS.com, a news and PR site out of Bristol contacted me on behalf of the Daily Mail, which apparently outsources to them the troublesome task of actually reporting their stories. I had a thoughtful interview with one of their reporters about Blackbeard, which informed this Daily Mail story on Thursday. The Mail managed to get my name wrong and the erroneously state that I'm based in New York and the byline for the story is of someone I never spoke to. They go on to, ironically enough, report how "the guidebooks, plaques, posters, and history books have been getting [Blackbeard's] name wrong all this time." Fancy that.

But they do say I'm the "leading authority and writer on the golden age of piracy" and give some nice plugs for the book, so I'm not complaining. After all, "it's absolutely true because I read it in the Daily Mail."

The Sun, not to be left out, ran this story Friday which, umm, "borrows" all of its reporting from the Daily Mail story. The tabloid -- Britain's largest circulation paper -- is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

In any case, I'm pleased the pirates' story is getting attention in the country where many of them were born, and glad that my newspaper career has largely centered on this side of the Atlantic.

Republic of Pirates becomes a #1 bestseller at Audible

Sales apparently drive sales. Consider:

Last week, Audible.com had a special $4.95 offer on the audio edition of my third book, The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down.

Today, Audible released their bestseller lists for the week to the Associated Press: Republic of Pirates was the #1 bestseller in non-fiction. Not bad for a nine year old book.

That is all.