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Patriot Pirates
- The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
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Publisher's summary
In Patriot Pirates, Robert H. Patton, the grandson of the battlefield genius of World War II, explains how privatizing engaged all levels of Revolutionary life, from the dockyards to the assembly halls; how it gave rise to wild speculation in purchased shares in privateer ventures, enabling sailors to make more money in a month than they might earn in a year; and how privatizing created fortunes that survive to this day.
As one naval historian wrote, "The great battles of the American Revolution were fought on land, but independence was won at sea."
Patton tells how, in addition to its strategic and economic importance, privatizing played a large political role in the Revolution. For example, Benjamin Franklin, from his diplomatic post in Paris, secretly encouraged skippers to sell their captured goods in French ports - a calculated effort on Franklin's part to break the neutrality agreements between France and Britain, bring the two countries to blows, and take the pressure off American fighters.
This is a sweeping tale of maritime rebel-entrepreneurs bent on personal profit and national freedom.
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- By: Larrie D. Ferreiro
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking, revisionist history, Larrie D. Ferreiro shows that at the time the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord the colonists had little chance, if any, of militarily defeating the British. The nascent American nation had no navy, little in the way of artillery, and a militia bereft even of gunpowder. In his detailed accounts, Ferreiro shows that without the extensive military and financial support of the French and Spanish, the American cause would never have succeeded.
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Imperial Twilight
- The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age
- By: Stephen R. Platt
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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As one of the most potent turning points in the country's modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today's China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to "open" China even as China's imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country's decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China's advantage.
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Balanced readable narrative about the Opium Wars
- By Carl A. Gallozzi on 09-05-18
By: Stephen R. Platt
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Washington's Spies
- The Story of America's First Spy Ring
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all.
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Kinda boring
- By Randall on 07-10-19
By: Alexander Rose
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Commander
- The Life and Exploits of Britain's Greatest Frigate Captain
- By: Stephen Taylor
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Edward Pellew, captain of the legendary Indefatigable, was quite simply the greatest British frigate captain in the age of sail. Left fatherless at age eight, with a penniless mother and five siblings, Pellew fought his way from the very bottom of the navy to fleet command. Victories and eye-catching feats won him a public following. Yet he had a gift for antagonizing his better-born peers, and he made powerful enemies. Redemption came with his last command, when he set off to do battle with the Barbary States and free thousands of European slaves.
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OK
- By peter on 02-02-21
By: Stephen Taylor
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Lincoln and His Admirals
- By: Craig L. Symonds
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Naval historian Craig L. Symonds' Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.
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Another masterpiece from the Master
- By Boone on 09-19-18
By: Craig L. Symonds
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1775
- A Good Year for Revolution
- By: Kevin Phillips
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 25 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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What if the year we have long commemorated as America’s defining moment was in fact misleading? What if the real events that signaled the historic shift from colony to country took place earlier, and that the true story of our nation’s emergence reveals a more complicated - and divisive - birth process? In this major new work, iconoclastic historian and political chronicler Kevin Phillips upends the conventional reading of the American Revolution by puncturing the myth that 1776 was the struggle’s watershed year. Mythology and omission have elevated 1776, but the most important year, rarely recognized, was 1775.
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Boring--couldn't finish it
- By Sean on 04-01-13
By: Kevin Phillips
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Crucible of War
- The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766
- By: Fred Anderson
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 29 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War - long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution - takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain's empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution. Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration.
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A Detailed History
- By Daniel on 07-15-18
By: Fred Anderson
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Six Frigates
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins
- Abridged
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Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the new government. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce against the Mediterranean pirates, or drain the treasury and provoke hostilities with the great powers? The founders, particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, debated these questions fiercely and switched sides more than once.
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BE ADVISED THIS BOOK IS ABRIDGED
- By George Carpenter III on 09-11-08
By: Ian W. Toll
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William Walker's Wars
- How One Man's Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras
- By: Scott Martelle
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In the decade before the onset of the Civil War, groups of Americans engaged in a series of longshot - and illegal - forays into Mexico, Cuba, and other Central American countries in hopes of taking them over. These efforts became known as filibustering, and their goal was to seize territory to create new independent fiefdoms, which would ultimately be annexed by the still-growing United States. Most failed miserably. William Walker was the outlier. Soft-spoken with no military background, in 1856 he managed to install himself as president of Nicaragua.
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Riveting
- By Jean on 03-17-19
By: Scott Martelle
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An Empire on the Edge
- How Britain Came to Fight America
- By: Nick Bunker
- Narrated by: Robert Ian Mackenzie
- Length: 17 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The story of the American Revolution told from the unique perspective of British Parliament and the streets of London, rather than that of the Colonies. Here, Nick Bunker explores and illuminates the dramatic chain of events that led to the outbreak of the war-revealing a tale of muddle, mistakes, and misunderstandings by men in London that led to the Boston tea party and then to the decision to send redcoats into action against the minutemen.
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Hard to put down
- By Mike From Mesa on 03-07-15
By: Nick Bunker
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The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution and the Fate of the Empire
- The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-Century Culture and History
- By: Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 21 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The loss of America was a stunning and unexpected defeat for the powerful British Empire. Common wisdom has held that incompetent military commanders and political leaders in Britain must have been to blame, but were they? This intriguing audiobook makes a different argument. Weaving together the personal stories of ten prominent men historian Andrew O'Shaughnessy dispels the incompetence myth and uncovers the real reasons that rebellious colonials were able to achieve victory.
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It didn't lose me
- By Matt on 04-28-15
What listeners say about Patriot Pirates
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- Matthew
- 12-07-08
Great topic - poor treatment
Neither concise nor comprehensive nor difinitive
Unfortunately, this book is not a history of the Privateering war during the Revolution but instead meerly provides a number of case studies taken seemingly at random of American Privateers and those who invested or profited from them. Additionally, many of these case studies include exceptionally long tangents into subjects that have very little to do with privateering. For example, much of the book is devoted to the great General Nathanial Greene merely because he invested and lost money on privateers. Another case is the decidedly undue amount of attention paid to the slave-trading activities of people who also were privateers. The author also makes his low opinion of privateers evident. In answering the question, "Is a privateer a licensed pirate or is a pirate an unlicensed privateer?" the author clearly thinks the privateer is a pirate.
I cam to the book hoping for an assessment of the privateering "guerre de course" of the American Revolution and was terribly disappointed. The big historical question is: Did the American Privateers significantly affect the course of the war and if so how? That question was not even addressed.
This book does have a limited role however. If you are already familiar with American Privateers, this gives you a worm's eye view of the "trade" from the perspective of crewmen, captains, owners, and investors. For that limited purpose alone I would recommend the book. (This is what lifts my rating from two stars to three.) Even then, I would advise looking elsewhere.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Carroll
- 09-17-11
Great insites on the Rev war naval struggle
A under-reported in modern history books... the raider / pirate / entrepenour aspects of the attacks on sea borne commerce during our Rev war is very useful for its thoroughness!
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- David
- 05-25-09
Bet you didn't know this
This tells a side to the American Revolution that I really never appreciated. It is a great story that delves well beyond the typical understanding of the Revolution, and it is simply amazing how useful this understanding is within the context of international relations today. To know how the U.S. was really born as a nation is quite interesting. Great book. Spends a fair amount of time off the oceans though, which is fine.
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Overall
- Richard
- 06-03-09
I find myself wanting to hear it again
The book gave me a deeper understanding of the period, the politics and the characters involved. I find myself recalling details I heard often. I never knew how many of our founding fathers were involved in our early Navy. It is a bit long however I will listen again.
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1 person found this helpful