AUS professor publishes book on piracy in the Caribbean

Dr. Joseph Gibbs, an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication at American University of Sharjah (AUS), recently had a book published entitled On the Account: Piracy and the Americas, 1766-1835.

Comprising original monographs, broadsides, trial records, newspaper articles and official reports, On the Account tells the story of Atlantic and Caribbean piracy in the late 18th and early 19th century.

"Like my other book Dead Men Tell No Tales, On the Account is meant to strip away the mythology and distortion that accumulated over the centuries about these people and these incidents," said Dr. Gibbs. "What comes out is often a more interesting story than the embellished ones," he added.

The new book has received praise from major maritime historians. Dr. Marcus Rediker of the University of Pittsburgh called On the Account an "excellent set of primary sources on piracy ... exemplifying the recent trend to treat piracy as a serious scholarly subject." Dr. Rodney Carlisle of Rutgers University called the book "a fascinating collection of documents pertaining to piracy that allows the reader to cut through the many artificial and romantic images that have been associated with these crimes of the sea."

The work, published in the UK, US and Canada by Sussex Academic Press, is Dr. Gibbs' second scholarly book concerning maritime history. Gibb's previous books were Gorbachev's Glasnost: The Soviet Media in the First Phase of Perestroika, Three Years in the Bloody Eleventh and Dead Men Tell No Tales.