131-221/321 Pirates and their Enemies

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Subject Description:

This subject will investigate a very old phenomenon: maritime raiding, which is often generally described as piracy. Because it is such a widespread phenomenon we will look at a few defined areas and times: in particular the Mediterranean during the high-periods of Christian-Muslim sea raiding, Elizabethan England, the Red Sea and the Atlantic in the 19th century, and south east-Asian waters today. The basic approach will be to examining the processes of change on a thematic basis: how different definitions of piracy have arisen, the social economic and political motivations underlying piracy, the relationship between pirates and other individual sea-raiders and the states; the personal social and sexual strategies that pirates adopted; methods of stopping piracy, both by their victims and by state action. We shall also examining the ways in which pirates have been presented in fiction and film and the uses to which popular culture has put the phenomenon of piracy.

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A selection of essential readings will be made available by the Department.