In the early modern period, both legal and illegal maritime predation was a common occurrence, but the expansion of European maritime empires exacerbated existing and created new problems of piracy across the globe. This collection of original case studies addresses these early modern problems in three sections: first, states' attempts to exercise jurisdiction over seafarers and their actions; second, the multiple predatory marine practices considered 'piracy'; and finally, the many representations made about piracy by states or the seafarers themselves. Across nine chapters covering regions including southeast Asia, the Atlantic archipelago, the North African states, and the Caribbean Sea, the complexities of defining and criminalizing maritime predation is explored, raising questions surrounding subjecthood, interpolity law, and the impacts of colonization on the legal and social construction of ocean, port, and coastal spaces. Seeking the meanings and motivations behind piracy, this book reveals that while European states attempted to fashion piracy into a global and homogenous phenomenon, it was largely a local and often idiosyncratic issue.

Drawing on a broad theoretical range from speculative realism to feminist psychoanalysis and anti-colonialism, this book represents a radical departure from traditional scholarship on maritime archaeology. Shipwreck Hauntography asserts that nautical archaeology bears the legacy of Early Modern theological imperialism, most evident through the savior-scholar model that resurrects - physically or virtually - ships from wrecks. Instead of construing shipwrecks as dead, awaiting resurrection from the seafloor, they are presented as vibrant if not recalcitrant objects, having shaken off anthropogenesis through varying stages of ruination. Sara Rich illustrates this anarchic condition with 'hauntographs' of five Age of 'Discovery' shipwrecks, each of which elucidates the wonder of failure and finitude, alongside an intimate brush with the eerie, horrific, and uncanny.

The Iberian conquest of the Atlantic at the beginning of the sixteenth century had a notable impact on the formation of the new world order in which Christian Europe claimed control over a considerable part of the planet. This was possible thanks to the confluence of different and inseparable factors: the development of new technical capacities and favorable geographical conditions in which to navigate the great oceans; the Christian mandate to extend the faith; the need for new trade routes; and an imperial organization aspiring to global dominance. The author explores new methods for approaching old historiographical problems of the Renaissance – such as the discovery and conquest of America, the birth of modern science, and the problem of Eurocentrism – now in reference to actors and regions scarcely visible in the complex history of modern Europe: the ships, the wind, the navigators, their instruments, their gods, saints, and demons.

In a modern global historical context, scholars have often regarded piracy as an essentially European concept which was inappropriately applied by the expanding European powers to the rest of the world, mainly for the purpose of furthering colonial forms of domination in the economic, political, military, legal and cultural spheres. By contrast, this edited volume highlights the relevance of both European and non-European understandings of piracy to the development of global maritime security and freedom of navigation. It explores the significance of 'legal posturing' on the part of those accused of piracy, as well as the existence of non-European laws and regulations regarding piracy and related forms of maritime violence in the early modern era. The authors in this volume highlight cases from various parts of the early-modern world, thereby explaining piracy as a global phenomenon.