Focusing on the Chesapeake Bay area, Mills (a journalist and historian associated with the U.S. Naval Institute) depicts those on both sides of the law during prohibition--bootleggers, still-operators, and mobsters, as well as the police, federal agents, Coast Guardsmen, and temperance crusaders. His account draws from local lore, with the backing of newspaper reports and government documents. (From the publisher's description)
By Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford ; contributing authors, Michael B. Barber ... [et al.]
Captain John Smith's voyages throughout the new world did not end--or, for that matter, begin--with the trip on which he was captured and brought to the great chief Powhatan. Partly in an effort to map the region, Smith covered countless leagues of the Chesapeake Bay and its many tributary rivers, and documented his experiences. In this ambitious and extensively illustrated book, scholars from multiple disciplines take the reader on Smith's exploratory voyages and reconstruct the Chesapeake environment and its people as Smith encountered them. (From the publisher's description)
"Here is a dazzling array of swashbuckling pirates, picaroons, and sea rovers pitted against the often feckless representatives of an outpost government authority in the Chesapeake Bay region. It is an exciting and dramatic 200-year history that begins grimly with the "starving time" in the Virginia colony in 1609 and ends with the peaceful resolution of the Othello affair with the French in 1807. In between lies a full panoply of violent and bizarre buccaneering incidents that one is hard pressed to imagine." (From the publisher's description)
In the decades following the Civil War, Chesapeake Bay became the scene of a life and death struggle to harvest the oyster, one of the most valuable commodities on the Atlantic coast. In this book, noted historian and author John Wennersten tells the stories of watermen, law enforcement officers, government officials, Bay scientists, immigrants, and oyster shuckers involved in the oyster trade. (From the publisher's description)
Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery-until now. Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade. (From the publisher's description)
