"Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas" by Laura Sook Duncombe

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Copyright: 2017

ISBN: 9781613736012

This is an fascinating book filled with great information on the women who were or at the very least contributed to piracy throughout history. The vast majority of works about piracy never mention but a few women, when it seems rather obvious (at least to me) that there must have been a significant number of them. Unfortunately due to the patriarchy most women have been pushed to the side and therefore written out of history. Even more unfortunately is that this is a common occurrence in virtually all aspects of historical writing, unless of course the author is 1) a woman, or 2) cares about representing history truthfully.

I 'met' for the first time in this book many women pirates whom I'd never heard of before. Most people have I'm sure heard of Anne Bonny, and Mary Reed. But the adventures of women pirates started many centuries before these two ladies came on the scene.

Other notable women pirates included in this volume come from many ages throughout history. Some were forced into piracy due to their circumstances, other chose the life for themselves. Some of the women pirates are fictional, but others were real. Some only aided the pirates in their lifestyle while others were actually crew members. The majority of the ones who were actual crew members dressed as men, in some circumstances this was for disguise, while in a number of cases I'm relatively sure it was for practicality.

This was a very well researched and informative book. As for as I can tell Ms. Duncombe hasn't written any others to date but I would watch out for anything she produces in the future.

Highly recommended.

"Superfreakonomics" by Steven Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Publisher:New York : William Morrow, [2010]

Edition:First edition, illustrated edition.

Copyright Date:©2010

ISBN:9780061941221

Characteristics:xxi, 281 pages :,color illustrations ;,27 cm

Superfreakonomics was a delight to read, as well as being very informative. I had read Freakonomics a few years ago and found that it too was well researched and well presented (however this was before I started writing reviews on this blog). I never took any microeconomics courses while I was in university but a book like this makes me wish I had done so.

The in depth examination of the Kitty Genovese murder was very interesting to read. My first exposure to this tale was during one of my psychology course at University, and like is mentioned in Superfreakonomics it was the standard telling (accounts from the regular news media), and that was many years after the fact as I was very young when it happened. The information provided in this book however sheds new light on the subject and makes you pause and think, rather than just be abhorred by the the bystanders did (or in this case didn't do).

Two other chapters that were very thought provoking was the one on global warming and the final one about monkeys. I would definitely like to hear more about the monkeys!

One criticism I have though is that when you consider that Canada is the Northern neighbour of the United States, and that we share the longest undefended border in the world. It seems odd to not see any mention of our existence in the book, mind you this is rather typical to a certain point in pretty much all books published in America so I guess I can't fault them on that (well, not too much at least).

All-in-all a very good book worth taking a good look at, you do tend however to want to read a whole chapter at once (and they're fairly long) so brew a big pot of tea and go to it. For sake of clarity I would recommend that you only read one chapter per day (or however long it takes, as there is a lot of information to absorb), and then sit back and reflect on what you have read.