Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steven Johnson

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt Reviews

• 
  Barbara

  
  "Come all you brave Boys, whose courage is bold,
  Will you venture with me, I'll glut you with Gold?
  Make haste unto Corona, a ship you will find,
  That's called the Fancy, will pleasure your mind."
  
  This is another example of a nonfiction book that is as compelling as any novel. Johnson's excellent account of the escapades of the pirate Henry Every between 1693-1696, and the impact which reverberated globally is truly astounding. Every led a very egalitarian mutiny of a British ship which he renamed The Fancy.
  
  After attacking and looting an Indian ship containing extreme riches, the great trading powers of the world, including the East India Company, are alerted. Johnson speculates this global search for the perpetrators was the birth of international manhunts such as that which sparked the hunt for al qaeda. For reasons the author clearly details, this led to the extreme wealth and power of the E.I. Co. and the opportunity for the British colonization of India, a new genre of literature and media coverage of events and trials.(albeit at this time the"media" coverage was sung by balladmongers.) I think it may have also been the inception of routing for the underdog.
  
  Steven Johnson does a fantastic job of bringing these events to life with detail and wit. In discussing the decline in British wool sales as Indian cotton gained popularity, he says," All across northern
  England a defacto 'Make England's Wool Business Great Again' movement arose. Because it was the wealthier British women who were demanding cotton fabric, the government chastised them by calling them "Calico Madams". Johnson says, "Apparently, real women wore wool."
  
  This is a book of adventure and history, the political and cultural events of that short period. The author presents a strong case for this group of pirates "lighting a match" that would impact the world for centuries.
  
  "They were the vanguards of a new social order. And they were killers and rapists and thieves, enemies of all mankind."
  
• 
  Madeline

  I really enjoyed reading Johnson's Ghost Map for my global health course in university, and his writing shines again in his newest work!
  
  In his author note, Johnson links this work with Ghost Map, noting how both follow a single thread to pull together seemingly disparate topics to show how a certain event can have global consequences, even spanning centuries after the event originally took place. That was one of my favorite aspects of reading Ghost Map, and I am so happy to say that Johnson has done it again! Enemy of All Mankind is a thrilling and expansive read, taking us from the dreary landscape of London, to Spain, Madagascar, India and the Bahamas, following the events catalyzed by Henry Every's raid on the Gunsway. After staging a mutiny aboard a merchant ship, Every leads a large group of pirates on a journey that ends with them getting away with the equivalent of around $20 million in today's currency of goods from a large, armed, merchant ship owned by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. What might simply be viewed as an astounding heist is broken apart to reveal its effects on the expansion of the British colonial empire to India.
  
  While Johnson writes a very exciting account of Every's exploits as a pirate, he does not shy away from the more unsavory details of his crimes. Johnson shines a light on the religious hate crimes, sexual assault and xenophobia committed by Every and his crew. He also gives attention to the Mughal women who were aboard the Gunsway when it was ransacked by Every's crew. These women were sexually assaulted in such harsh fashion that many of them committed suicide rather than bear witness, or be assaulted themselves. Johnson handles these crimes with sensitivity, and questions how the historical record has ignored the stories of these women and other minorities who were impacted by Every's crimes.
  
  While there is little information available about what happened to these women (and the 90 slaves later purchased by Every after the heist), Johnson offers ideas as to what might have happened, backing up his conjecture with contextual historical evidence. This could easily get out of hand, with pages and pages of conjecture, but Johnson knows how to limit himself, and writes just enough to make us curious. Throughout this book, Johnson utilizes this structure to fill some of the holes left by history, and the understandably thin historical record on Every and the crimes he committed.
  
  This is a really great work of historical non-fiction that should garner anyone's attention, regardless of whether they have any interest in pirates or not. It is thrilling, intriguing, infuriating, and enlightening all at once. I learned many interesting tidbits, and am super excited to shove this in the hands of anyone who shows ANY vague interest in this topic.
  
  Thank you to Riverhead Books for kindle providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Enemy of All Mankind will be published on May 12, 2020!
• 
  Stacie C

  Bringing to life the story of a notorious pirate to a modern audience isn’t an easy task. We’re too used to the comfort of easy travel, the mythos of pirates and the commercialized imagery produced by movies and television. Images of Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver have been part of entertainment for so long that the idea of true piracy and all it’s ruthlessness has almost been washed away. It isn’t until you’re able to wash away the false images and submerge yourself into the actual history that you can see piracy for it’s truly brutal nature. It also brings up many questions about governments, laws, corporations, scandal, colonization and other factors that allowed piracy to flourish and exist in the manner that it did for so long. Piracy didn’t exist in a bubble. Enemy of All Mankind takes the story of one pirate, who helped usher in the Golden Age of Piracy, and examines the factors leading up to his captaincy, the heist that would make him infamous, the interests of the East India Trading Company in the matter and England's attempt to make his crew an example, all for him to never be seen or heard from again. This is the story of Henry Every.
  
  
  When I first began this book, I must admit that Henry Every is not a name I was at all familiar with. Charles Vane, Anne Bonny, Jack Rackham and Blackbeard are some of the names that would immediately come to mind if asked about notorious pirates. So reading about this history of Every was enlightening, in many ways. This book sheds such a light on the historical events happening around Every, while managing to focus the story on the life of the pirate and how he was able to pull off the heist and gain notoriety. Every’s story can’t be told without mentioning the East India Trading company, the Mughal Dynasty, England’s response and the effect of the press. All of these elements have to be woven together to bring weight to Every, his disappearance and the age of piracy that would come after him.
  
  
  I mentioned earlier how difficult it could be to completely submerge someone of the modern era, successfully into this historical era. In the hands of someone less talented than Johnson it may have been impossible, but he does a great job relaying this story. Told in a fashion that takes into consideration the scope of the changing times, the corruption at hand and the immensity of the oceans, Johnson takes all of the threads and creates a tapestry that is scary to imagine and frank in its descriptions. He doesn’t glamorize piracy, but lays out its true nature and the nature of those that benefited from it. In short, I thought this book was great and think that if you are at all interested in the history of piracy, then this is a book you'll want to read!
  
• 
  Al

  The subtitle may be true, but as is often the case, the content doesn't quite live up to the billing. The story is nominally about Henry Every, one of the major players of the piratical age. He's not frequently featured in modern works on piracy, probably because his career was a brief one. He and his crew pillaged only two ships, but one of them was a huge Indian ship crammed with wealth and women. They raped the women and stole the wealth. Every himself was never located, but a group of his crew were caught, tried in London and executed. That's it. Johnson drags the story out, and while it's interesting, I don't think it's enough to make a book. To me, the really interesting parts of the book (which make it worth a three star rating) were the ones in which he describes the growth of classic piracy, the pirate culture, and its effect on the popular mind at the time. Piracy has lost its luster now, but at the time it captured the public's imagination. One might say that for a time, pirates were the 17th century equivalent of Bonnie and Clyde.
• 
  Bon

  I really enjoyed this, to the point I live-tweeted it lol. Tons of interesting facts, a variety of them, from the groundbreaking sociology of pirate ships (queer relationships, divided loot, insurance etc) to disease and politics. It's a pretty brief listen, too!
• 
  Porter Broyles

  This book possibly deserves more than 3 stars, but it didn't grab me the way it I was hoping. It's well written and interesting.
• 
  Geoff

  I expected a fun red and a huge does of historical thoughtfulness and thread-connecting and that's exactly what Johnson delivered. He used a shockingly violent English Pirate attack on a Mughal Indian treasure ship to weave together threads around the spread of Islam; the creation and self-sustaining logic of stock corporations; the ascendancy of European Imperialism; the breakdown of class systems and the beginnings of the ideals of individual liberty; the creation of celebrity journalism; and the continuing abuse of legal power by governments to promote their larger interests. Like all good history, Johnson not only told us what happened an what the evidence does or does not say, but he also tells us why it matters, what forces came together to create those conditions, and and how it influences us today.
  
  *I was given an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*
• 
  Hadrian

  Popular history. While the sources on the subject's life are sparse and contradictory, Johnson fills the gap with background and anecdotes.
• 
  Ben

  There is too much exaggeration and too many hypotheticals for my taste. This could be an interesting story, but not with the little hard information we seem to have available. Surprisingly, the fictionalized parts of the story, like Johnson's narration of the original mutiny, are not well written. Johnson tries to imitate a thriller, and it doesn't come off.
  
  > Every's crimes on the Indian Ocean ultimately helped define and fortify institutions that would come to dominate the modern world. Thanks to Samuel Annesley's ingenuity, the Gunsway affair would give the East India Company new powers that would ultimately lead to their imperial rule over the subcontinent; the contretemps with Aurangzeb forced the British government to clarify its long-ambiguous legal attitude toward piracy in international waters. … Every's story also lit a different fuse: the deeply populist vision of a society where the stratifications of wealth and privilege could be replaced by a much more equitable form of social organization.
  
  > In 1631, a Barbary pirate raid on the small Irish village of Baltimore in County Cork in the dead of night absconded with almost a hundred people, half of them children, all of whom were sold into slavery back in Algiers. Fourteen years later, two hundred forty English citizens living on the Cornish coast were captured and enslaved
  
  > His father's terminal illness turned out not to be terminal at all. Shah Jahan lived for another eight years after his son clawed his way onto the Peacock Throne. That was eight years too many for Aurangzeb. He condemned his father to spend the rest of his life imprisoned in the Red Fort at Agra, with only a distant view of the Taj Mahal through his cell window
  
  > A little more than half a century after the Spanish Expedition left London, sailors would stage one of the first general strikes in labor history. The word "strike" itself derives from their strategy of "striking," or lowering, the sails of anchored ships as a sign of their refusal to work
  
  > Henry Every and his men adopted a simpler structure: two shares for Every, one share for everyone else. … Consider the opening line of the Roberts articles: "Every man shall have an equal vote in the affairs of moment." The pirates encoded these democratic principles into their constitutions almost a century before the American and French Revolutions.
  
  > "Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight from the common stock and for lesser hurts proportionately." Pirate communities built insurance into their constitution … All these elements combined—an onboard democracy, with separation of powers; equitable compensation plans; insurance policies in the event of catastrophic injuries—meant that a pirate ship in the late 1600s and early 1700s operated both outside the law of European nation-states and, in a real sense, ahead of those laws
  
  > in order to maximize both agility in the water and manpower on board, most pirate captains disavowed their exclusive quarters and slept with the rest of the crew belowdecks. The egalitarian ethos of the pirate community extended to the architecture of the ship itself.
  
  > Accused of crimes against humanity, accused of violating the property and the direct relations of the Grand Mughal of India, the six men were found by the jury of their peers to be innocent of all charges. Even Henry Every—"not taken" but charged with the crimes nonetheless—had been exonerated. … Instead of accusing them of robbing the Gunsway, what if the state centered its argument on the theft of the Charles II? The men had been acquitted of piracy, but the state could still charge them with mutiny.
  
  > Aurangzeb would go on to outlive many of his descendants, dying in 1707 at the age of eighty-nine. In his final years, the Universe Conqueror sensed that the Mughal dynasty was on unstable ground. "After me, chaos," he is said to have predicted. It turned out to be an accurate forecast. For fifty years after his death, the Indian state was characterized by a "a string of weak emperors, wars of succession, and coups by noblemen." All the while, the East India Company consolidated its power over the region, culminating in the Battle of Plassey in 1757, after which the corporation assumed official control of the subcontinent, an administrative reign that would last for a hundred years.
• 
  Craig

  I went into this book anticipating a sort of dry and rote, but nonetheless detailed, account of the manhunt for Henry Avery. I was pleased to find myself not only enjoying the writing on every page, but not wanting the book to end at all. Johnson is careful to remind the reader that creating a history is an active process, — that at every turn there are decisions made which include or exclude parts of the story. He includes narratives that are important to the story which westerners often leave out, and also tries to outline the narratives that cannot be put in due to lack of historical record (like the stories of the Mughal women). He not only talks about what is in the historical texts, but how the texts were perceived, how they were invariably altered to favour certain viewpoints, even going so far as to mention how the architecture of the institutions of the courts and of pirate ships inform us of the ideologies of their inhabitants. This attention to detail at every turn kept the book fascinating. The non-linear structure of the causes and effects of history lead to a remarkably richer read than say, any biography would. I can't wait to read more of his work.
• 
  Dave

  I love Steven Johnson's writing. The breadth of his knowledge and research always amazes me. He weaves in elements from science, economics as well as history and other disciplines to set the stage for his stories. I mean, admit it! You've always wondered how exactly a 17th-century ship's cannon fires. Um, haven't you?
  
  In this book, he examines the deeds of a British pirate in the late 1600s, the years before what we typically think of as the glory days of pirates. Henry Every stole a ship anchored in a Spanish harbor (Johnson provides evidence that he had some justification for his action) and sets sail for the area between Africa and India. In this period, the Muslim Mughal Empire ruled the subcontinent.
  
  In addition to trading ventures, the empire periodically sent ships up the Red Sea to provide transport for pilgrims to Mecca. These ships also carried much trade and treasures and were targets for pirates as they reentered the Arabian Sea through a choke point at the southern end of the Red Sea. Well, Every was ambitious. He took on the largest Mughal ship of them all even though it vastly outgunned him. Through a series of flukes, he succeeds in capturing the vessel. This is no cheery fantasy history of pirates. Bad things happened, including the rape of a number of women pilgrims.
  
  Every escapes, heading back to England by way of the Bahamas. Meanwhile, the pressure is on the English to do something about their pirates if they want to remain in favor with the Mughal Empire. Johnson then argues that these military measures against pirates in and around India eventually led to Britain's running the whole show in India.
  
  All in all, the pirate tale is an interesting story on its own, and the added dimension of worldwide consequences makes it even more intriguing.
• 
  Joe M

  4 swashbuckling staaarrrs! 
• 
  Jerome Otte

  A well-written and straightforward work.
  
  A lot of the book deals with the pirates’ culture, their economic impact, and their role in the history of the Atlantic world and the British empire. Johnson ably shows the conditions that allowed pirates like Every to thrive. He describes the connections between Every’s crew and the East India Company, how that entity made Every’s exploits possible, and how it used Every’s piracy to reset its relationship with the English and Mughal governments; the mughal accused England of being a “nation of pirates,” simply because Every was English. Every’s commandeering of that corporation’s property and his refusal to share his loot (about $60 million today) angered its rich stockholders and would trigger the hunt for him, but he got away with it. Still, he doesn’t romanticize Every or his crew, showing how they were the terrorists of their age. His analysis of the legal case against Every is pretty solid.
  
  The narrative is fast-paced and very readable, but it has a lot of conjecture, and Johnson seems particularly interested in “what-if” questions. Sometimes Johnson goes off on tangents that are off-topic, if interesting. A lot of this feels like filler (no doubt because there isn’t much information about Every available to us), and some of it, Johnson admits, is speculation; we don’t even know Evey’s real name or ultimate fate, after all. Also, Johnson tries to make the case that Every’s piracy led to the British taking more direct control in India, but that seems like a stretch. The writing can also get a bit repetitive or long-winded.
  
  Still, an engaging, well-researched and informative work.
• 
  jeremy

  understanding that egalitarian ethos is essential to understanding why pirates like henry every were so popular at home. they were not just charismatic rogues, pursuing a life of adventure at sea. they were also advancing populist values that had almost no equivalent on the mainland.

  steven johnson's newest book, enemy of all mankind, is the intriguing true tale of piracy, empire, and burgeoning capitalism — set at the end of the 17th century and traversing the entire globe. crime and commerce loom large in johnson's story of legendary pirate henry every. the ghost map author deftly portrays the era, as well as the resounding legacy these historical happenings had on the world.

  to make sense of the pirates—and of henry every most of all—we have to adopt a similar split consciousness. they were heroes to the masses. they were the vanguard of a new, more equitable and democratic social order. and they were killers and rapists and thieves, enemies of all mankind.

  
  3.5 stars
• 
  Amy Rae

  Did I love it because it was actually good, or did I love it because I waited months for it (I think I preordered it in December or January?) and then received it in the middle of a fucking pandemic and really, really needed something to be worthwhile?
  
  It's very narrative, it offers a lot of suppositions in addition to its actual facts, and yet I loved it. I thought it was well-read, and the text was quite approachable. I can't judge whether it did a good job with the Mughal Empire parts of the history--it's the first I've read anything on the subject--but I'd love to learn more about Aurangzeb and his dynasty in the future.
  
  I don't remember when I actually finished it. Time is a flat circle.
• 
  Debbie

  I don't know how this book even got on my radar but I really enjoyed it. I guess I don't know very much about pirates (who does?!) so basically everything I read was news to me (lol). I also thought the structure of the book was really well done.
• 
  April

  This book tells the truly fascinating story of Henry Every and his piratical exploits- which also weaves in with the saga of The East India Trading Company's rise to power as a naval force and governing body. A single pirate raid, undertaken at a perfect convergence of a fraught political climate between trading nations and multiple twists of fortune, has significant historical effects on the development of multiple countries. It's a tale of ambition, greed, religious zeal, democratic ideals, corruption, and the art of spin.
  
  It's just a shame that the presentation was infuriating.
  
  The author was clearly well-researched in the subject, especially given that few facts were left in the historical record. The attention given to The East India Trading Company, England, the Indian subcontinent, and others preceding, during, and following the events of 1694-1696 also form a much more complete picture of the long-reaching effects of Every's piracy and help to explain how one ship tangibly impacted history. But Johnson was also prone to embellish events with sensational details he even admitted were unlikely and frequently fell into conjecture. He also continually applied modern morals to 17th century people!
  
  The small chapters were easily digestible and each had a clear subject, but seemed to exist as stand-alone entries in a magazine series intended to be read slowly over a period of weeks or years. Chapters will cover background, touch on the events of interest, and then leap ahead. They also simultaneously expect the reader to remember the names and importance of multiple figures from multiple countries with important motivations and ties to this period, but will endlessly go over some of the same details (with the same wording!) as if the previous chapter had to be returned, sorted, stamped, reviewed, and then filed by an inefficient mail-order library before a new chapter could be sent to the reader. In the acknowledgments, the author states his editor basically did a crime-scene staging to figure out what order the chapters could be presented in--something that I feel strongly explains the disjointed nature of the book. It truly feels as if each chapter was written with the intent to be a self-contained minisode and get shuffled into some semblance of order at a later date. I honestly think I would have enjoyed it more as a series of History Channel segments.
  
  If you're curious and I haven't made it clear, I was absolutely not a fan of the resulting chapter structure. The first half (!) of the book constantly teases about what was so special about Every and/or the events of 1695, sometimes acting like the general reader should already be aware, before then returning to chapters of historical background. We regularly leap from pirate trial to background to hints to trial to background. By the time we get the chapters actually detailing piracy, I was annoyed by the whole book. Perhaps I prefer a much more linear narrative than the author, but I would have much rather had the whole trial at either the beginning or end of the chapter structure instead of being spread through both.
  
  
  Tldr; absolutely fascinating history, I just despised reading about it
• 
  Sean O

  The scourge of Piracy on the Red Sea puts the East India Company at risk with the ruler of India (the richest man in the world.) So in order to protect their lucrative trading contracts of calico and cotton fabric, the United Kingdom wages an international manhunt to capture the most famous pirate of the era.
  
  Pirate culture was pretty egalitarian, but it was also brutal. On one hand, you would make a fortune in a very short period of time. On the other hand, the life of a pirate was nasty, brutish, and dangerous.
  
  This was a good book, and really dovetails into "The Republic of Pirates" and novels like Captain Blood.
• 
  Tricia

  Fantastic writing about a pirate who had a global impact but who’s infamy doesn’t seem to had continued to modern times. Great honeymoon pool and beach adjacent reading.
  
• 
  Buccan

  De las peores lecturas del año: habla de todo y de nada. Da la sensación que se ha querido documentar en exceso, quería hacerlo notar y no sabía ni qué poner, lleno de interpretaciones e hipótesis varias y con datos muy superfluos.
  Y penosa traducción del título.
• 
  Lynette Macleod

  Really enjoyable, well sourced, and while I came for the pirates I was pleasantly surprised by the wider reaching history of India told along the way. Fascinating topic that I realize I had very little knowledge of. The kind of book that leads me to continue reading on the topics afterwards.
• 
  Rolly

  No es una novela propiamente dicha. Es una narración muy dinámica sobre la vida de Henry Every, precursor de la Edad de Oro de la Piratería, y sobre cómo Inglaterra consiguió, tras mucho esfuerzo, deshacerse del calificativo de Nación de Piratas que el mundo le otorgó o quiso otorgarle a finales del S.XVII.
  Si os interesan los libros sobre piratas, sobre cómo eran en realidad, lo recomiendo mucho. Pero insisto en que no es una novela de ficción. Todo lo que se narra gira en torno a un único argumento desglosado en años anteriores y posteriores para darle sentido.
• 
  Ramon

  La verdad es que la traducción del título es un poco libre con respecto al original. Mucho más acertado el original : Enemy of all mankind: a true story of piracy, power, and history's first global manhunt.
  
  En cualquier caso el libro me ha gustado mucho. Se lee muy agradablemente y en todo momento para ser un ensayo lo vives con mucha intensidad.
  Y estamos ante un libro que nos habla del atraco del siglo, por descontado de ese siglo, el XVII .
  Nos habla de piratas y de cómo funcionaban como modelo casi proto-democrático, como sueño de romper el ascensor social de una sociedad clasista y opresiva, pero también de asesinos, violadores y gente con maldad. Como siempre llenos de contradicciones humanas. De lo romántico a lo más crudo y deshumanizador.
  
  Trata del impacto que provocó en el mundo el ataque pirata que sufrió un barco Mogol imperial lleno de tesoros de la Índia por aquella época mucho más rica y ostentosa que el incipiente imperio Británico. Relatando los hechos desde el motín y robo del barco que hizo bandera pirata hasta que pasó después de la captura del botín siendo perseguidos como criminales de toda la humanidad.
  
  Nos narra a través de una recopilación de investigación histórica los hechos ocurridos con el pirata probablemente más significativo que ha existo aunque no el más popular, Henry Every.
  Y la cadena de consecuencia que tuve para una de las primeras empresas que existió "la compañía de las Indias orientales" y el inicio del mercado de capitales y sus primeros pasos de empresas con tanto poder como para maniobrar la política de un país.
  
  Además plantea otras tesis como que el robo fue uno de los percutores que cambió el destino de la historia como un factor más de la evolución y posterior dominio Británico sobre la Índia.
  
  Toda la historia es tan espectacular que se merece una película o una novelización realista. Que puede que exista pero desconozco.
  
  Otra de las tesis que presenta es que los piratas fuerons los primeros famosos de la sociedad, en un tiempo en que las imprentas y la sociedad empezaba a demandar contenido para sus embriones de diarios, los más populares eran las hazañas de los piratas tratados como héroes por uno y villanos por otros.
  Esas estrellas mediáticas era un caramelo para una sociedad oprimida, y mostraban unos sueños de democracia que podrían muy bien sido la semilla de lo que más tarde fue la implantación de democracias maduras sin necesidad de ser un outlayer del estado para disponer de libertad, y poder para el pueblo.
  
  O la relación inevitable entre piratas y terrorismo ya que la clave del éxito de los piratas era la fama que ganaban como sádicos y vengativos con aquellos que no se rendían a sus abordajes y eso se ganaba mediante la creación de un mensaje de terror y miedo ante el encuentro con una bandera negra, mientras que la rendición daba opciones a perder la fortuna pero no la vida bajo tormentos.
  
  Fascinante y muy muy recomendable y escrito con elegancia y sin ser una novelización y por tanto no hay empatía alguna y es muy científico, consigue mucha tensión en su lectura.
• 
  Larry

  Johnson does a great deal with a little (scattered pieces of evidence with missing material) to sketch the great accomplishment of a largely unknown pirate—maybe the greatest single exploit ever carried out by a pirate. He provides an interesting read with many an aside, and gets the pieces to overlap and reinforce each other.
• 
  Will Chin

  Enemy of all Mankind by Steven Johnson, which supposedly documents 'history's first global manhunt', should have been a runaway hit for me. It ticks all the boxes in my books, from history lessons and sea battles to a stolen ship with gold and jewels on board, as well as a pirate captain on the run. It should have been a shoo-in, a home run, an absolute no-brainer.
  
  Yet, as you can see from the three-star rating, this book sits squarely in the middle of the road. While I did learn a great many things about piracy in the 17th century, the rise (and fall) of Mughal Empire and the beginning years of the East India Company, everything else about the book — the supposed ‘meat of the story’ — just aren't all that compelling. Or rather, the bits that I thought I’d enjoy fell a bit flat, and the bits that I didn’t thought I’d enjoy turned out to be the most fascinating parts.
  
  The title would suggest a ‘Catch Me If You Can’ -esque manhunt around the world, but the entire manhunt begins and ends within a page or two. Basically, the UK and India figured it’d be mutually beneficial to capture this runaway pirate captain and his crew, so the UK sent out flyers that were somehow incredibly successful. No twists and turns, no close calls for the fugitive, no betrayals — just flyers. In a way, I understand that Stevens is restrained by the fact that all of this happened centuries ago, and he had to base the book on diaries and letters and official legal documents. The fact that he could even build a narrative is pretty impressive in and of itself. The issue though is that the book feels like butter spread over too much bread. Even though the book is relatively short, a significant portion of it is devoted to backstories. Even after the pirates are captured, Stevens goes deep into theory crafting, trying to figure out what happened to this person or that person, without really giving us any solutions in the end. It is as if he found this interesting tidbit in history that no one wrote about, thought it’d be a great idea to write up on it, only to discover halfway through his research that, hey, maybe there’s not much there.
  
  Still, for its length and the history lessons that the book DID provide, I would still recommend this book. It isn’t very long and is still feel with interesting information about the time and place. Just don’t expect have your mind blown by the heist itself or the fallout thereafter.
• 
  Rafa

  Una historia más sobre piratas pero que deja un sabor a poco o casi nada.
  Para comenzar, y hablando siempre de la versión española, el título se ha cambiado de forma irreconocible para atraer de la forma más absurda a un determinado público y. además, la descripción del libro es, cuando menos, una interpretación muy generosa de lo que ofrece el manuscrito.
  Centrados ya en el texto, la investigación histórica es pobre y no ofrece un análisis profundo, ni siquiera somero, abundando en continuas suposiciones que en algunos casos llegan a puntos realmente absurdos. como por ejemplo, SPOILER, en su insistencia en un supuesto romance entre el pirata Every y una princesa nieta del emperador mogol, a ver, que si falta una princesa se dan cuenta, hombre.
  Por último, no entiendo esta moda de idealizar a los piratas y atribuirles características democráticas. hay que distinguir oclocracia y democracia, y debemos recordar que el aspecto que define a los piratas es el robo y el asesinato; por mucho que votaran, algunos, no los convierte en héroes.
• 
  Lori L (She Treads Softly)

  Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steven Johnson is a very highly recommended account of Henry Every, the seventeenth century’s most notorious pirate.
  
  "In the case of these two ships confronting each other in the Indian Ocean, those nearly microscopic causes will trigger a wave of effects that resonate around the world. Most confrontations like this one, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet. This is the story of one of those strikes."
  
  In September 1695, English pirate and mutineer Henry Every, captain of the Fancy, attacked and seized a Grand Mughal treasure ship returning to India from Mecca. This act, one of the most lucrative crimes in history (about $20 million today), had global ramifications and sparked the first international manhunt and the trial of the 17th century. Every's name is even somewhat disputed. It may have been "John Avery" but he also briefly went by Benjamin Bridgeman. It is agreed that he was born near Plymouth, in Devonshire, on the southwest coast of England in the late 1650s.
  
  Johnson also covers the history of piracy before Every, starting with the Sea People in the Bronze Age, up to Every's act that triggered of a major shift in the global economy in the emerging power of the expanding British Empire, the East India Company, and the modern global marketplace. While the British Crown put a huge price on Every's head, only five of his crew were arrested, tried twice, and hanged. Every's daring piracy and escape also marked the spread of his fame as a working class hero. He and his crew became celebrities of a sort and legends, even inspiring a song.
  
  As expected, Enemy of All Mankind is a fascinating, well-researched, and thoroughly enjoyable account of a little known pirate and the repercussions of his actions. I completely enjoyed reading this detailed examination of how one act of piracy placed in a historical context reverberate across centuries and had far-reaching consequences. Like Johnson's other books, this narrative is highly readable making it interesting to both the curious and history buffs and shows how one event can result in lasting, far-reaching consequences.
  
  Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House.
  
  http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2020/0...
• 
  Patrick Funston

  How does one extraordinary life and a few decisions and moments of luck within that life change the world? In Steven Johnson's newest book, about the life of Henry Every (Henry Avery), ponders the question and those related to it.
  
  It is a book about Henry Every's short-lived reign of terror in and around the Indian Ocean, but it is also the story of the growing power of the East India Company and ultimately the beginnings of English control of the subcontinent. I really enjoyed this book and have become a big fan of Johnson's style of telling a specific, character-focused narrative while illuminating appropriately related tangents.
  
  Though Every operated before the Golden Age of Piracy (mostly Carribbean) in the early 1700s, his methods and actions were part of a long line of piracy that goes back to the Sea Peoples of the late Bronze Age. Johnson connects the dots and sees in Every a specific turning point, one that comes to a head based on the growing interconnectedness of global trade and politics. He mulls over questions such as why Frances Drake was knighted while Every was condemned and sees in Every's actions the spark that ultimately led to British control of India.
  
  I especially appreciated how Johnson tells Every's story. Telling the truth of both his charisma and his rapacious (literally) character. Every is the main character of the narrative and, though the world changed around and because of him, he is not a hero.
• 
  Lisa

  The author cites one of my favorite Latin phrases: By 1715, the laws of every civilized nation declared pirates “hostis humani generis” - enemies of all mankind. It’s unbelievable that there are still Somali pirates roaming the seas today.
  
  An interesting look at how a mutiny (justifiable or not, still an open question) and then a subsequent pirate attack on a Mughal pilgrimage ship laden with treasure inadvertently and eventually turned the East India Company into the protectorate of India, which then led to a hundred years of British dominion over the subcontinent.
  
  The narration was, for the most part, good - except when the imitation of accents tended toward racist caricature.
  
  Overall, the narrative took me back to studying AP World History with my kids, listening to Crash Course videos with John Green, and annoying Dallas because I insisted on calling the Mughals “Muggles” instead. Good times, LOL.
  
  Three stars.