Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson

Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt by Steve Johnson

Bringing to life the story of a notorious pirate to a modern audience isn’t an easy task. We’re too used to the comfort of easy travel, the mythos of pirates and the commercialized imagery produced by movies and television. Images of Jack Sparrow and Long John Silver have been part of entertainment for so long that the idea of true piracy and all it’s ruthlessness has almost been washed away. It isn’t until you’re able to wash away the false images and submerge yourself into the actual history that you can see piracy for it’s truly brutal nature. It also brings up many questions about governments, laws, corporations, scandal, colonization and other factors that allowed piracy to flourish and exist in the manner that it did for so long. Piracy didn’t exist in a bubble. Enemy of All Mankind takes the story of one pirate, who helped usher in the Golden Age of Piracy, and examines the factors leading up to his captaincy, the heist that would make him infamous, the interests of the East India Trading Company in the matter and England's attempt to make his crew an example, all for him to never be seen or heard from again. This is the story of Henry Every. 

When I first began this book, I must admit that Henry Every is not a name I was at all familiar with. Charles Vane, Anne Bonny, Jack Rackham and Blackbeard are some of the names that would immediately come to mind if asked about notorious pirates. So reading about this history of Every was enlightening, in many ways. This book sheds such a light on the historical events happening around Every, while managing to focus the story on the life of the pirate and how he was able to pull off the heist and gain notoriety. Every’s story can’t be told without mentioning the East India Trading company, the Mughal Dynasty, England’s response and the effect of the press. All of these elements have to be woven together to bring weight to Every, his disappearance and the age of piracy that would come after him. 

I mentioned earlier how difficult it could be to completely submerge someone of the modern era, successfully into this historical era. In the hands of someone less talented than Johnson it may have been impossible, but he does a great job relaying this story. Told in a fashion that takes into consideration the scope of the changing times, the corruption at hand and the immensity of the oceans, Johnson takes all of the threads and creates a tapestry that is scary to imagine and frank in its descriptions. He doesn’t glamorize piracy, but lays out its true nature and the nature of those that benefited from it. In short, I thought this book was great and think that if you are at all interested in the history of piracy, then this is a book you'll want to read!