Home
AK Press Blog
Bookstore
AK Picks
Friends/Bookmobile
Events
About AK/Acerca de AK Press
Links
Contact
The Devil's Anarchy: The Sea Robberies Of The Most Famous Pirate Claes G Compaen & The Very Remarkable Travels Of Jan Erasmus Re

Stephen Snelders
Edition: pb
ISBN: 9781570271618
Publisher: Autonomedia
Release Date: 2005-11-22
ITEM OVERVIEW
By rebelling against hierarchical society and living under the Jolly Roger, pirates created an upside-down world of anarchist organization and festival, with violence and death ever-present. This creation was not a purely whimsical process. In The Devil's Anarchy, Stephen Snelders examines rare 17th century Dutch pirate histories to show the continuity of a shared pirate culture, embodied in its modes of organization, methods of distributing booty and resolving disputes, and tendencies for high living. Focusing on the careers of Claes Compaen, a cunning, charismatic renegado who claimed to have stolen more than 350 vessels, and Jan Erasmus Reyning, who hit the seas at age 12 and became a buccaneer in the pirate jungles of Santo Domingo, Snelders paints a salty picture of the excesses, contradictions, and liberatory joys of pirate life.