Under the black flag

Pirates have become so much a part of story and legend that is easy to forget they actually existed. Their roving lives left behind little historical record; thus our image of them is overlaid with three centuries of ballads, plays, epic poems, and films. But how does our conception of pirates compare with the reality, and why has such a romantic aura become associated with murderers and thieves? Author Cordingly, of England's National Maritime Museum, has mined a wealth of original sources--eyewitness accounts, court documents, national archives, and more--to create the most authoritative…