Explores the colorful history of piracy and smuggling, including the Golden Age of buccaneers, Prohibition-era rumrunners, and endangered wildlife kidnapping. Pirates and Smugglers is a swashbuckling introduction to the highwaymen and women of the seas-from the cruel Cilician pirates who terrorized the Mediterranean more than 2,000 years ago to the well-organized and ruthless modern-day buccaneers who target supertankers on the South China Sea-and the loot they plunder and smuggle.

Includes index.

Foreword -- First pirates: Ancient times -- Northern menace -- Slave pirates -- Plundering privateers -- Spanish main -- Summary -- Golden age: Buccaneers -- Blackbeard's time -- Pirate attack -- Life on board -- Pirates on land -- Female pirates -- Pirate punishments -- Chinese pirate fleets -- Political pirates -- Secretive smugglers -- Smuggling facts and fiction -- Summary -- Modern piracy and smuggling: Rumrunners -- Modern-day smuggling -- Wildlife smugglers -- Smuggling people -- Pirates today -- Catching the criminals -- Shipwreck hunters -- Summary -- Glossary -- Index -- Acknowledgments.