Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign
Written by Stephan Talty
Narrated by John H. Mayer
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, crossed the Atlantic in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean in the service of the English became legendary. His daring attacks on the mighty Spanish Empire on land and at sea determined the fates of kings and queens, and his victories helped shape the destiny of the New World.
Morgan gathered disaffected European sailors and soldiers, hard-bitten adventurers, runaway slaves, and vicious cutthroats, and turned them into the most feared army in the Western Hemisphere. Sailing out from the English stronghold of Port Royal, Jamaica, "the wickedest city in the New World," Morgan and his men terrorized Spanish merchant ships and devastated the cities where great riches in silver, gold, and gems lay waiting. His last raid, a daring assault on the fabled city of Panama, helped break Spain's hold on the Americas forever.
Awash with bloody battles, political intrigues, natural disaster, and a cast of characters more compelling, bizarre, and memorable than any found in a Hollywood swashbuckler-including the notorious pirate L'Ollonais, the soul-tortured King Philip IV of Spain, and Thomas Modyford, the crafty English governor of Jamaica-Empire of Blue Water brilliantly re-creates the passions and the violence of the age of exploration and empire.
From the Hardcover edition.
Stephan Talty
STEPHAN TALTY is the award-winning author of Agent Garbo, Empire of Blue Water, and other best-selling works of narrative nonfiction. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He is also the author of two psychological thrillers, including the New York Times bestseller Black Irish, set in his hometown of Buffalo. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and many other publications. Talty now lives outside New York City with his family.
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Reviews for Empire of Blue Water
123 ratings12 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the most fascinating books I've ever read. As gripping as a novel. A real page turner. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in pirates!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An easy and enjoyable history read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Stephan Talty tells the true story of Henry Morgan's life. Morgan's story is better than any pirate movie.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent book but the publisher could double check the spelling when his author quotes Alexandre Exquemelin. The French flintlock gun makers who made the best rifles which Henry Morgan used to conquer Portobelo were Brachie in Dieppe and Gelin in Nantes. I looked on the web for images of such rifles but could not find any signed under these names. I found one made in Dieppe which could have been used by one of Morgan's followers. The maps at the beginning were very good. Portobelo in Panama seized by Morgan is on the list of endangered monuments belonging to the patrimony of mankind.Firepower superior to the Spanish Arquebus was one of the reasons of the success of this blue water Empire. A recent visit to the Museum of Charleston, SC collections showed only London made flintlock rifles slightly older than 1660, rather in the early 1700. If anyone finds where to see Brachie and Gelin's flintlock's rifles, let us know.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a very good book! I loved that the author didn't demonize Morgan; but neither did he lionize him. IT is interesting to think that many of Morgan's exploits against the Spanish imperialist played a role in shaping the landscape of our own future nation. This was a fascinating read and I was equally mesmerized and horrified by some of the battles (particularly, the gruesome torture of combatants and civilians).
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book has a bit of travel writing at the beginning, but the rest of it is a biography of Morgan and it climaxes with the tidal wave that did in Port Royal, the headquarters of the Buccaneers. It's quite readable, but not extraordinarily researched or insightful.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Well written and very interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Romantic Age of Piracy (as opposed to the "Golden Age", which is now) is the stuff of legend and Hollywood epics. In reality, it came about as a means to wage wars by proxy when treaties interfered with direct military conflict. The unlikely Spanish Empire grew large and fat on treasures from the Americas, and relieving them of this source of wealth allowed poor nations such as England to compete as a world power.Rather than condone piracy outright, Britain, France and others commissioned "privateer" ships; privately owned ships where the captain is given a Letter of Marque allowing him to legally prey upon enemies of the state. This legal distinction may or may not save the captain and crew from execution because of piracy. Some of the revenue brought in was staggering, however, there was not much affinity between the buccaneers (named for a dried meat the were fond of stocking) and the governments that originally instigated their activities. Sure, there were some plain-old scoundrels, but a pirate ship was a very democratic thing and the captain's authority was entirely on the sufferance of the crew. Which makes the activities of Captain Henry Morgan all the more remarkable. Bearing authority from the British government, he waged a privateering war against Spain. More remarkable, and something I hadn't heard of, was his leading an actual pirate army on a campaign on the isthmus of Panama. Despite suffering hardships and supply shortages, the pirate army succeeded in combating inferior Spanish forces, resulting in entire towns paying massive ransoms for the pirates to simply go away.Empire of Blue Water is not a romantic, swashbuckling tale but it is a fascinating look at the political aspects of the institution of piracy in the Caribbean during colonial times.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Objective account of the career of Henry Morgan, pirate, privateer, lieutenant governor of Jamaica, model for Captain Blood, and posthumous rum salesman. “Larger than life” seems very trite yet very appropriate; Morgan managed to sack Portobello and Panama in the face of numerically superior enemy forces, and escaped from an inescapable ambush in Maracaibo Bay, seemingly just by believing he could. The other interesting character is the city of Port Royal, supposedly the wickedest city in the Western Hemisphere and inhabited by a variety of people eager to part successful pirates from their loot. Background includes the histories of 17th century Spain and England and the personalities of the major statesmen of both places. Author Stephen Talty introduces a fictional English pirate ordinary seamen to emphasize day-to-day pirate life was not all chests of doubloons and ladies of negotiable virtue; this doesn’t quite seem to fit in tone with the rest of the book, but isn’t really objectionable. Port Royal’s demise is Biblical, as the inhabitants get to discover why it’s a bad idea to build a coastal city on saturated sand in an earthquake and tsunami zone. Ironically, Morgan wasn’t spared, despite being deceased; compression waves popped his coffin out of the ground and the following tsunami washed it out to sea, never to be seen again. Perhaps he would have preferred it that way.
This would be a good book for younger readers enthused by Pirates of the Caribbean, as an example of how truth can be more exciting than fiction; you might want to be prepared to explain what a matelote is, though. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Less piratey than expected. No jolly roger, hidden treasure, parrots or other such. More a book on the raids and terror caused by a group of men. An interesting bit of historical reality
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Decent for a pop history, the book suffers from vagueness and blanket generalizations about the behavior, motivations, and tactics of the privateers. Talty is very good at storytelling and the book is well-paced and exciting, but he could have included more dates so the reader could have a general idea when the events he describes are occurring without having to flip back and search the preceding pages.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a very interesting non-fiction account of the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean during the late 1600's. In order to break the Spanish Empire's stranglehold over the New World, England awarded commissions to ship captains to raise private navies. The English called them "privateers" but the Spanish preferred the term pirate. Welsh captian Henry Morgan was the greatest of them all, raiding up and down the Spanish controlled coast. This book describes the pirates and their lifestyles and the battles Morgan led them into. Anyone interested in learning the real history behind the popular "Pirates of the Caribbean" films will enjoy this fascinating slice of pop history.