Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars.

• Author: Tomaselli, Michael

Goodall, Jamie, Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay: From the Colonial Era to the Oyster Wars. Charleston: History Press, 2020. 160 pages. Softcover, $23.99.

Early in her work, Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay, Dr. Jamie Goodall creates a dynamic and thought-provoking perspective of an often glossed over section in the academic literature. Staff Historian for the Center for Military History, Goodall breaks down the monolith of piracy in the region, elaborating that, "[t]he history of piracy in the Chesapeake is a story of relationships and opportunism, adventure, and bloodshed, and economics and politics" (p.17). Rather than an unchanging monolith, Goodall creates a narrative filled with dynamic movement and exchange between the characters, setting, conflict, and resolution of her story. Goodall positioned this narrative to be successful on different levels. Initially, Pirates in the Chesapeake Bay can be seen as a direct response to the current literature. Goodall examines different agents such as George Roberts, John James, and Captain Kidd as a means to illustrate the uniqueness of the individuals. Second, Goodall examines the relationships of historical characters such as pirates, smugglers, and merchants in a way that can actively engage those not extreme experts in the area. This is a vital component to Goodall's success because all too often dissertation-turned-books can be so entrenched in the academic discourse, that they need a reading list before you can begin to understand the subject. Yet, Goodall balances these goals without sacrificing authority of the work.

In order to accomplish her lofty goals, Goodall organizes the work by different relationships over time between specific historical characters; the pirates or those opposing them. Goodall takes the time to add a timeline of conflicts to the work, in order to allow the reader to better understand the people being examined. This is not an arbitrary use of a page, but an expert addition to allow the reader to understand that nothing exists in a vacuum. These agents in the Chesapeake Bay was affected by the world in which they inhabit as much as they shaped it. The author uses five individual parts to guide the reader along the macro-historical narrative, while making it easy to create different micro-snapshots of the role different people played. The work moves from colonial life, revolutionary agents, struggles to create a new nation, the United States Civil War, and ending in the...