Meticulous chronicle of perhaps the most audacious pirate raid in history. On the Caribbean side of the Audiencia of Panamá, the city of Portobello welcomed Spanish ships carrying manufactured goods critical to the West Indian empire's maintenance. On the Pacific side of the narrow isthmus lay the city of Panamá, where ships laden with silver from Peru off-loaded their treasure onto mule trains headed to Portobello for galleons returning to Spain. By 1666, it had been almost 70 years since English privateer Francis Drake had seriously threatened the area's security. In the meantime, her treasury drained by incessant war and the cost of servicing her far-flung colonies, Spain's power waned, her vigilance relaxed and her defense of the Caribbean grew thin and rusty. From his base on Jamaica, Privateer Henry Morgan noticed. Taking full advantage of Spanish decay and the vast distances and slow communications that allowed him to ignore whatever peace agreement Europe had concluded, Morgan (making sly use of commissions issued by Jamaica's governor, Thomas Modyford, that lent legal cover to his operations) brought Spain to her knees. Earle (Economic History/Univ. of London; The Pirate Wars, 2005, etc.) focuses on the five-year period featuring a series of pirate attacks and Spanish counterthrusts that culminated in the audacious 1671 raid on Portobello and the looting of Panamá, which cemented Morgan's reputation as history's greatest pirate commander, whose effectiveness was exceeded only by his brutality. Relying mostly on letters, reports and legal documents, the author has pieced together a fascinating tale that's especially strong in recounting the Spaniards' mostly hapless response to Morgan's depredations and in delineating how piracy thrived within the interstices of law and diplomacy. Earle also explains why, once launched on their dubious missions, irregular forces of men who thought nothing of rape, torture or any despicable tactic to gain their objective, nonetheless strictly adhered to self-made codes of conduct and elaborate conventions that governed the division of spoils. A well-told adventure. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Pirate Captain Henry Morgan's raid was the last in a series of attacks on Spanish possessions in the Caribbean, all of which were authorized by the British government. Earle depicts the five years leading up to the raid, followed by a description of Morgan's capture and sack of the city of Panama. Earle covers four campaigns by the Jamaican privateers, culminating in the expedition to Panama and one successful counterattack by the Spaniards, revealing that altogether, we have one island captured three times by different people, two cities and three towns captured and sacked, and one of the most extraordinary fleet actions in naval history. The narrative offers nearly as much space to the Spaniards, who were the victims, as to the Jamaican privateers themselves. Earle also chronicles the reaction in Spain and England to the events in the West Indies and examines the attempts made by the Spanish colonists in the Indies to defend themselves from their enemies in Jamaica. The result is an intensely engaging account of adventure. --George Cohen Copyright 2006 Booklist

Sensational subtitles notwithstanding, Henry Morgan (c.1635-88) was a legal bearer of English commissions to engage in commerce raiding against Spanish shipping in the southern Caribbean. As both of these works make clear, his exploits were extensions of conflict in Europe, not mere outlawry. Talty (Mulatto America) follows Morgan's career from his origins in Wales to his death as a corpulent, respectable planter in Jamaica. On the other hand, real piracy was rife in the Americas during the 17th century, and the line between privateer (i.e., Morgan) and pirate depended on where one stood. Talty tells a stirring tale, often using an imaginary crewman, Roderick, who sails with Morgan, fights for loot, drinks it away, and generally exemplifies the rough-and-ready ethos of the richest and most sinful city in the Americas, Port Royal, Jamaica, whose destruction by earthquake and tsunami in 1692 is given a chapter. Earle (economic history, emeritus, Univ. of London; The Pirate Wars) tells largely the same tale using many of the same sources although far more scrupulously and with no recourse to imaginary characters. His story is a little more academic in tone but manages to imbue the remarkable events with a considerable degree of immediacy. He dwells little on Morgan's biography and stops with his sack of Panama in 1671. Both authors refer to the remarkably democratic relationships among the "Brethren" (a term applicable to both privateers and pirates), in which leaders were elected and shares paid out on the basis of negotiated qualifications (grenadiers were paid extra for each bomb they threw; loss of limb was to be compensated). Given the recent pirate buzz, public libraries might be well advised to buy both. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/06, for Talty's book.]-Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In his latest vivid and well-researched account of the great era of piracy, historian Earle (The Pirate Wars, etc.) focuses on the greatest achievement of the English corsairs who sailed to Jamaica and their leader Henry Morgan. The capture and sack of Panama in 1671 was the culmination of five years of no-quarter warfare between Spain and Britain in the Caribbean. During that time, one island was captured three times by different people; two cities and three towns were sacked; and Morgan's buccaneers annihilated a Spanish fleet in less than two hours. Earle's extensive use of unexplored Spanish records enables him to avoid the triumphalism of most Anglocentric accounts of these operations. Still, it's clear that Morgan and his followers were willing to accept almost any risk to make profit and harm Spain, and were vicious even by 17th-century standards. The Spaniards appear consistently behind the curve, ascribing their catastrophes to God's will instead of developing their ability to fight back. Ultimately, the English government ended buccaneering's heyday, to preserve a treaty that ended the war with Spain in Europe-but hopes for friendly relations in the Caribbean were destroyed by the flames in Panama on January 28, 1671. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved