This is a collection of 16 profiles, each only 10-11 pages, of women pirates, or women who took to the seas to get what they wanted, with various motivations.
It does a great job of not romanticizing what it must've been like for those women in time periods when women were generally not welcome on ships at all, or minimizing the death and destruction they caused at the helms. Some of what they accomplished, beyond piratical murder and mayhem, will impress.
It ends with some of the strongest women pirates who were standout leaders of their epochs precisely because they were women in societies dominated by men.
Featured profiles of women pirates include:
- Sayyida al-Hurra
- Jeanne de Clisson
- Lagertha
- Alfhild
- Margaret Jordan
- Charlotte Badger
- Mary Read
- Artemisia
- Teuta
- Rachel Wall
- Sadie Farrell
- Anne Bonny
- Lady Mary Killigrew
- Maria Cobham
- Grace O'Malley
- Cheng I Sao
Examples are drawn from all over the seas, not just the European ones, and it's a great, swift read for Women's History Month. It's a great, quick read!
