True tales of history's sea-faring scoundrels and their daring deeds, Buccaneers and Pirates recounts the legends of the notorious brigands who plundered North American coasts from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries.

Meet Blackbeard, who reveled in shooting down members of his own crew; Henry Morgan, the infamous pirate who eventually became Deputy-Governor of Jamaica; and Jean Lafitte, master of an enormously profitable piracy ring—even though he only boarded a ship twice in his life. Recount the horrors of the most infamous buccaneer of them all, Captain Kidd, whose evil exploits continue to raise goose bumps. You'll also become acquainted with a cast of lesser known—but equally intriguing—pirates, including two women whose courage and cunning were a match for any man's.

Often humorous, sometimes chilling, yet always fascinating, these authentic stories form a wonderfully readable history of piracy's beginnings and its rapid spread through the coastal waters of the New World.