This volume of essays gallantly attempts to “use archaeology to present a glimpse of what it really meant to be a pirate” (xxiv). Though the parts, at times, do contribute to our overall understanding of pirates and to the growing subfield of pirate studies, the endeavor as a whole misses its mark. The organization of the book is well conceived, with the first section focusing on pirate lairs and the second on pirates and their prey (mostly sunken wrecks), but the final segment that attempts to theorize pirates in fact and fiction is underdeveloped and inconclusive. The geographic scope is most impressive, with chapters on archaeological sites ranging from New England coasts, North American rivers, and Central American jungles to islands and reefs in the Indian Ocean. The chronological scale is more limited, with most essays focusing on the “Golden Age” of piracy in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Two exceptions to this chronology are a chapter on Jean Lafitte and his smuggling ring in the Barataria marshes at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the early nineteenth century and an essay on Ohio and Mississippi River pirates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The temporal extension and the focus of some essays on pirate settlements, contraband trade, and riverine piracy are constructive moves that expand the typical purview of piracy from the open oceans, tropical islands, and the ships themselves to a more nuanced exploration of the spaces and places in which pirates operated.

Though very few of the chapters reference one another—a significant weakness whose repair would have strengthened the volume—one thread that does run throughout is the difficulties in actually recognizing a pirate site in the archaeological record. This is most pronounced in the two contradictory essays on the Beaufort Island wreck purported to be Queen Anne's Revenge, the legendary flagship of Blackbeard's fleet. The conflicting conclusions found in these two essays also highlight the troubling dilemma between commercial treasure hunters and marine archaeologists. The carnival-like spectacle that marked the excavation of the Beaufort site does more than demonstrate the general public's continuing fascination with pirates. The rush to definitively declare the wreck as Blackbeard’s—and Wayne R. Lusardi's more circumspect conclusions to the contrary—should likewise raise a red flag about the impact the commercial realm has had upon this site, in particular, and the field of maritime archaeology, in general.

In addition to the inherent difficulties in identifying sites as definitively “pirate,” most of the essays read as historical exercises that rarely engage in any in-depth interpretive analysis. An exception is Daniel Finamore's piece on the Barcaderas logwood camp at the mouth of the Belize River. While his conclusions are debatable, Finamore makes an intriguing argument regarding the presence of Kangxi porcelain, indicating that the baymen pirates engaged in symbolic flaunting of oppressive early modern social hierarchy. Since similar porcelain shards were found in a number of the other sites reviewed in the book, further comment and analysis by the authors and editors would have been useful. A parallel missed opportunity involves the discovery of artifacts commonly found in the slave trade in a number of the sites attributed as pirate shipwrecks in both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The volume also has some daunting historiographical problems, with many essays relying on a minimal number of primary documents as well as dated secondary sources. None of the chapters, for example, reference any of the scholarly essays found in Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader (ed. C. R. Pennell [New York, 2001]), and many authors maintain a Wallersteinian fascination with cores and peripheries that has been modified or challenged by more recent historical and theoretical scholarship. In addition, readers are often left to deduce conclusions and interpret information on their own. One conspicuous example is the complete transcription of Henry Morgan's probate inventory upon which the author, Donny L. Hamilton, does not comment or analyze.

The fascination with pirates in popular culture is an important one to untangle, as the introductory and concluding essays attempt to do. Charles Ewen's statement that “the viewing public has lost interest and quit watching” (1) pirate films is, however, already outmoded in light of the blockbuster Disney feature film franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, which not only shattered box office records but also garnered an Academy Award nomination for Johnny Depp for his dazzling portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow. A detailed analysis of this most recent pirate pop culture phenomenon would have greatly enhanced the volume and could have supplemented Russell K. Skowronek's underdeveloped discussion of Huck Finn in the final chapter. In conclusion, if this collection is indeed “a status report on the contributions of archaeology to the history of piracy” (xvi), as the series editors claim, then this reviewer must conclude that the report, though potentially promising, is incomplete.