Anyone examining the so-called golden age of piracy confronts numerous erroneous views about these outlaws, many of them perpetuated in contemporary movies and novels. Rather than attempting to disprove assumptions about the lives of notorious pirates such as Henry Avery and Captain William Kidd, Margarette Lincoln traces the historical roots of conflicted attitudes towards piracy in British Pirates and Society, 1680–1730. The book draws upon a diverse array of sources to argue that public opinion in the British Isles gradually turned against piracy, although fascination with the lives of individual buccaneers remained, as the continued popularity of publications that detailed their lives and exploits attests.

Lincoln, deputy director at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, draws upon a variety of newspapers, legal cases, and popular novels, including those penned by Daniel Defoe, to trace shifts in public and state opinion, but she also cites lesser known ballads, pamphlets, plays, and travel narratives to illustrate her arguments. Her book thus provides a wider reach than many of the recent articles and books that have examined early modern piracy from strictly legal or commercial perspectives. For instance, British Pirates describes the rising popularity of crime literature and how it fed curiosity in pirate trials and executions. The ballads she cites also illuminate, in vivid language, public interest in the recounting of bloody and gruesome pirate activities. Through these sources, Lincoln can trace the influence of class and gender on the various readings of pirates that coexisted during this period, giving rise to a nuanced and ambivalent attitude towards pirates, as particular individuals received more sympathy from the public than others. From the start, Lincoln cautions that she is not concerned with separating fact from fiction in these accounts, but some of the most revealing moments are when she uncovers the evolution of falsehoods in the press.

British Pirates and Society does not simply provide colorful anecdotes but also highlights how state policies influenced popular perceptions of piracy. The book begins by describing the trials and public executions of pirates in London, citing how the final speeches and images of the condemned reached a wide audience and served as a warning to those who would seek wealth illicitly. From there, Lincoln traces the progression of British maritime laws, as the government moved towards a more firm legal definition of piracy under increasing merchant pressure, culminating in the 1721 Piracy Act. Throughout her book, the imperial reach of Britain was constant and growing. Although her primary focus is on the British Isles, she also highlights major shifts in attitudes towards piracy in British American colonies. The book features an in-depth examination of Madagascar as not just a base for British (and American) pirates but also a location that loomed large in the British popular imagination in the midst of debates over imperialism as the state sought to exert control over British subjects around the world.

While British Pirates and Society does delve briefly into the appeal of pirating for ordinary seamen, Lincoln highlights the constant tension between the mundane choices (or lack thereof) that encouraged a turn to piracy and the more sensationalist beliefs about the pirate lifestyle that were repeated in the popular press. In her chapter on gender, for instance, she contrasts the challenges faced by pirate wives with the public fantasies of swashbucklers wooing exotic women. The book cites a variety of publications that created a romantic story around the relationship between the British pirate Avery and his Indian princess bride. In contrast to some recent publications that have focused on pirates as radicals, Lincoln insists that in spite of the appeal of the pirate lifestyle, most of the men (and women) who turned pirate did so because they had few other options.

Despite the strength of this approach, Lincoln faced several challenges in writing British Pirates and Society. The book treats the different elements that influenced the transformation of popular attitudes towards pirates in separate chapters and some of the chapters regrettably end up retracing some of the same stories and themes. This format makes clear that multiple beliefs about pirates coexisted during this fifty-year time span, but some of the chronological connections are lost. The book faces a larger challenge in presenting piracy as a global phenomenon. Work on piracy in the Indian Ocean and the South China Seas has revealed that Europeans viewed non-European piracy in a far different light than they did the exploits of Kidd or Avery. Lincoln suggests, but does not fully examine, that there was no universally agreed upon definition for piracy as European states sought to expand their legal dominion overseas.

She ends with a consideration of contemporary views on pirates, with particular attention to Somali piracy. Her attempt to link the treatment of Somali piracy in the press with the romance of piracy from earlier centuries is the least convincing portion of the book. Whereas this equation makes sense for her discussion of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but less so for pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa. As the focus in the earlier chapters was almost strictly on British subjects, the extension of this argument to the present day does not provide easy comparisons.

Despite these minor criticisms, British Pirates and Society reveals a colorful history, illustrated with engaging examples and excellent images, and provides a convincing explanation for the ambivalent but lasting appeal of pirates. The nature of their maritime activities in this globalizing age enabled sensationalistic fiction, both pro- and anti-piracy, to find a broad audience and these publications continue to influence our understandings of piracy today. Even though British national interests turned against piracy, Lincoln suggests, many in the British Isles continued to view literature describing the pirate lifestyle as the height of entertainment.