By Cruz Apestegui. Conway Maritime Press. £30 (No US$ or €uro price quoted). ISBN 0-85177-9328. The subtitle of this book is Buccaneers, Privateers, Freebooters and Filibusters and the period covered is phenomenal, from 1493-1720, which date was the end of the ‘Golden Age’ (and the death of the great Welsh Pirate Black Bart), and it does cover just about everything imaginable in 240 pages, with over 200 colour and black and white illustrations and maps. Many already well known of course, but others less commonly encountered. The title although limiting is deceptive since the book looks at the Atlantic as a whole and the Indies and indeed its major thrust is if nothing else a vindication (at last!) of the role of powerful King’s men such as the great Sir Henry Morgan, long reviled and quite wrongly so. Apestegui shows that piracy, privateering, etc, developed not as an individual’s or a group criminal voyage of opportunity, but as a positive, Government initiated strategic option in war between nations, usually everyone else against Spain of course! With splendid 1/450 scale ships and 15mm ‘pirate’ figures available now from “Peter Pig”, this book will open up a vast range of wargames scenarios and campaigns far from the shores of “Treasure Island”. It is sumptuous, well worth buying and I must say rarely have I encountered a book, which so neatly encapsulates the entire ‘Pike & Shot’ period at sea without difficulty and with great and readable scholarship. Its now almost a decade since I wrote “The Black Captain and the Golden Age of Piracy” about the career of Bartholomew Roberts and in which I suggested that Bart loyally named his own ships and resisted attacking those of the King of Spain in deference to the Jacobite King in exile; it seems I may have been correct. Cast aside your unread copy of that bigoted Hanoverian lickspittle Daniel Defoe’s worthless tirade and buy this. You won’t regret it! Back to Table of Contents -- Lone Warrior # 142 Back to Lone Warrior List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Solo Wargamers Association. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com