Virgin modern historians digging up tax records to deduce the price of a cow in ancient Rome vs Chad ancient historians whos source is their friends overheard rumors at the market.
It is if anything, thematically appropriate that the most famous book in the history of piracy, the ground zero of pirate history and popular culture, is definitely lying to tell the audience what they wanted to hear in the name of making a buck.
0:32 but every known intact teapot is already flying around the Sun. teapots are on Earth. Earth is flying around the Sun. teapots are flying around the Sun.
Funny you mentioned an updated annotated version would be nice. I'm aware that Nush Powell the PHD pirate historian who wrote British Pirates in Print and Performance is working on an annotated version of A General History volumn 1 and 2. It was aimed to be out this year but it might be a 2025 release now.
Bet even the majority of actual professional pirate researchers today wouldn't care about the subject if it wasn't for the direct and indirect influence of this book.
Video Idea: Do a historical analysis on the “Black Pearl” like the Jack Sparrow video you made. Although the ship has to be fast, and hopefully has a black hull and sails.
Nice balanced view of the this important topic, even if the tittle is a bit harsh (I get it, it is good to have a bit clickbaity titles). I would especially distrust the book's biographical information while other areas of it are better like noted. This early enlightenment period is interesting. I was initially interested in pirates and still am obviously but it was the General history controversy among other which made me interested in the 1700s English (political) print culture and now I am making a non-pirate related thesis out of it. Having seen this and especially the follow up vid coming soon for all I think the topic is well covered here so please take some doubloons. Too lazy to use Patreon etc. but I think this should work too. Cheers! 🏴☠
Great Video! You present a very clear-eyed, even-handed treatment of the book. As both a history nerd AND an enthusiastic cosplayer who performs in a music act based on the romanticized popular culture ideas that date back to A General History, I've decided to start spelling the term for historical sea-rovers as "pirate" with an i (but not an eye-patch!) and the term for the fictional, mythical sea-rovers as "pyrate" with a y, the way Johnson spelled it.
Oh indeeed but Pirate was spelled in various ways in the era and Pyrate was no way specific to the book. I think pyrate was a tad more common than pirate but it also appear often in the period texts with spellings like pirat, pyrat, pirrat and pyrrat.
Oh boy! You've gone and talked about one of my favorite subjects: AGH, so here goes: I have some tangential experience with commercial publishing and I can tell you many publishing houses, even some with rather respectable names, hire 'in-house' writers to produce work, novels, usually. They publish these as if they all came from a single writer, but in fact they have several writers, and may rotate them over time. A rather famous crime novelist is famous for this, although I will give him credit for at least putting his slaves...err...partners' names on the cover. So, I'm almost certain that AGH was produced more or less this way. The publisher had several scribblers toiling away at some miserly rate of pay per word or page, given a general idea or outline of the desired story, and then edited and touched up by an editor before going to press. Do I have to say the purpose of publishing is to make money? Good. Glad you understand that. Where did these ink-stained wretches get their material? Well, more or less, the same way I get the material for my many short stories and novels: I steal from the best. I have the freedom now to choose what stories I want to tell, but in my youth I wrote what the guy who signed my checks told me to write. Like any good whore, I did it for the money. I suspect the quill-molesters of "Captain Johnson's" day were much the same. Indeed, one can assume that the more didactic sections were written at the behest and instruction of the publisher, or his investors. It may certainly be justly assumed that the heavy handed political and moral philosophy was generated by someone in control of the publishing process, who wanted certain messages and ideas to get public circulation. But, overall, the point was to make a buck, so, gee, guess what, it's not exactly an accident that the cover illustrations of Bonny and Read show women with bared breasts waving weapons in the air. I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that neither of those women, or any others who might have worked with a crew, went into battle with their nay-nays swinging in the breeze, any more than a pirate who wanted to live to see tomorrow wore knee-high boots aboard ship or into combat on the water. Excellent way to drown or slip in the blood and guts, All that being said, by all means read it. You can skip the boring parts and get some sense of what historical fiction writers were doing with their craft. Just as I usually base my lies...err....stories on some reality, there is no doubt some facts can be picked out of the detritus. I've got no problem with someone writing a novel about Libertalia, giving us a detailed story about the first Pirate Republic of Madagascar, but nobody today is going to think it's history. If an author were to try to present it as a 'found manuscript' the style of writing alone, no matter how well mimicked, would prove it was fiction. (And if written as if in the 17th Century would be almost unreadable for the modern audience, who can barely read a sentence longer than ten words.) If one is so naive as to think that Treasure Island is a true story about a young boy sailing with pirates to find treasure, then one is indeed lost. Read A General History the same way you'd read Stevenson, a bloody good yarn about pirates that has the ring of truth. This is my favorite word when it comes to writing: verisimilitude. Fiction should SEEM as if it's true, even when it's lying through its teeth. (And yes, I sympathize with your plea for $. Us scribblers find it damned hard to live by our wits. I could never do it and still can't, as demonstrated by the lackluster sales of my own pirate novel, A Pirate's Life for Me, available as an ebook on Amazon. It's cheap as hell and still....oh, never mind. I write for fun now and Devil Take the Hindmost!)
I remember reading parts of A General History in school in the 70s, and then almost every show on TV was based on it, then came the internet and we finally started hearing the truth, at first we didn't know what to believe, but it's like everything else we heard while growing up, it was almost all baloney!
The £50 for Robinson Crusoe seems to have been the advance fee paid to Defoe for writing the book, not the price a purchaser would have to pay to buy the book. Apart from that obvious mistake, excellent and thoughtful video.
To add I think this book, especially its first volume also tried to direct attention to those pirates who go caught or killed by successful government actions like Blackbeard, Bart Roberts and Rackham, Bonny and Mary. There were many who were more successful in avoiding the law, yet they seem to get the get pushed back or like in the case of beggar Every/Avery the story was presented as a cautionary tale. Indeed stuff like Ned Low's death in an hurricane may be a real rumor (even if he possibly took refuge among the Spanish much like Taylor for example, even if he was likely notably poorer), but it certainly served the anti-piracy agenda of showing how rules of God and man both condemned piracy. Pirates do not deserve statues or honors but the book is indeed anti-piracy propaganda and should be noted as biased for this reason too. It wanted pirates to be interesting, but still to fail.
The one thing the narrator does, is not consider how when it was written, many stories were changed an name changed to save men from the rope. This is a great video, but equally as hollow as the book itself. It has just as much information without any actual proof of claims. So either could be correct of wrong I say it's in the middle. But one thing that is a fallacy, is applying modern day perspective to history. No one ill really know unless we lived it and felt it. Otherwise, it's ALL perspective of history.
And I have to add you to DNR because you're advertising shirts in my home feed. I don't know what youtube randomly decided to start shoving people's webstores in the home feed but now I'm DNRing those channels
Uh… I think you’re mixed up. Channels aren’t doing this, it’s entirely RUclips, but even if not, why would this bother you? It’s genuinely confusing… these people put in hard work to make content, and hopefully earn sone money too, RUclips pays less all the time, ripping off smaller creators like this in favor of boosting huge creators like beast. But when these creators make a shop where they sell their own merchandise on their own website so they can break free of the grip of RUclips, that’s where you draw the line and unsubscribe? Why? I’m really asking cuz I do not understand… I like this channel, I wish him the best, I hope he makes more merch, his designs are really cool, and I hope he sells a ton of it… it will probably allow him the opportunity and financial freedom to put more into their work. Is it just that thin line of products you see listed under the video in your feed that’s upsetting to you? Or am I missing something? I can’t see how this could possibly be objectionable to anyone! If your gunna get pissed, get pissed at RUclips for pumping in 3x more ads than a few years ago, that’s annoying and likely affects you and the rest of us… but selling a hoodie with a skull print on it… come on…
I used to believe the cliches on that book but your channel has educated my lazy ass a little. so thanks! 20:01 aaaah, so its a very old tradition for the newspaper to lie.
The only complaint I have about this video isn't even topical, I just find myself distracted by the subtitles. If in the future you could pull those out of the video stream and into their own subtitles/closed captions stream (all video file formats support that, and so does RUclips) that would be greatly appreciated!
@@Ickie71 no nothing to do with conspiracy. Just in general. The older you are the more the truth is discovered. I'm subscribed to this channel becuase I enjoy it very much .
Your voice sounds different this video. I've read A General History several times and it's a hard read if you're not used to reading 400 year old English. I've no intention of reading it again. :)
Your the only person ive ever seen slag off this Book?whats your problem with it you seem to use it as a source in many of your videos? and i must ask you what country are you from?
@@Ickie71 we literally have more access nowadays to period sources and compare them side by side with the book and see all its contradictions, lies, and made up stories. I don’t care if it was a “bestseller” it’s still a book full of LIES
Me when I join the war on misinformation on the side of the misinformation:
Virgin modern historians digging up tax records to deduce the price of a cow in ancient Rome vs Chad ancient historians whos source is their friends overheard rumors at the market.
True twitter user grindset
I'm stealing this saying
It is if anything, thematically appropriate that the most famous book in the history of piracy, the ground zero of pirate history and popular culture, is definitely lying to tell the audience what they wanted to hear in the name of making a buck.
Man... Gold and Gunpowder was way simpler without existentialism 😔
7:28 Roasted the entire 2023 Napoleon movie with 1 sentence.
Mr. Information when he sees people spreading Mrs. Informstion
He saw them do it on their anniversary too. Poor Mr.information, he didnt deserve that
0:32 but every known intact teapot is already flying around the Sun. teapots are on Earth. Earth is flying around the Sun. teapots are flying around the Sun.
good point
Pirates when they find out grifting is easier than armed robbery:
Isn’t that how we got these politicians and pundits?
Funny you mentioned an updated annotated version would be nice. I'm aware that Nush Powell the PHD pirate historian who wrote British Pirates in Print and Performance is working on an annotated version of A General History volumn 1 and 2. It was aimed to be out this year but it might be a 2025 release now.
There are very big improvements in terms of sound, image and subtitles. So thanks for the content, I really enjoyed it.
Bet even the majority of actual professional pirate researchers today wouldn't care about the subject if it wasn't for the direct and indirect influence of this book.
Thanks!
Video Idea: Do a historical analysis on the “Black Pearl” like the Jack Sparrow video you made. Although the ship has to be fast, and hopefully has a black hull and sails.
Nice balanced view of the this important topic, even if the tittle is a bit harsh (I get it, it is good to have a bit clickbaity titles). I would especially distrust the book's biographical information while other areas of it are better like noted. This early enlightenment period is interesting. I was initially interested in pirates and still am obviously but it was the General history controversy among other which made me interested in the 1700s English (political) print culture and now I am making a non-pirate related thesis out of it. Having seen this and especially the follow up vid coming soon for all I think the topic is well covered here so please take some doubloons. Too lazy to use Patreon etc. but I think this should work too. Cheers! 🏴☠
Internet Archives? Yeah, about that…
Great Video! You present a very clear-eyed, even-handed treatment of the book.
As both a history nerd AND an enthusiastic cosplayer who performs in a music act based on the romanticized popular culture ideas that date back to A General History, I've decided to start spelling the term for historical sea-rovers as "pirate" with an i (but not an eye-patch!) and the term for the fictional, mythical sea-rovers as "pyrate" with a y, the way Johnson spelled it.
Oh indeeed but Pirate was spelled in various ways in the era and Pyrate was no way specific to the book. I think pyrate was a tad more common than pirate but it also appear often in the period texts with spellings like pirat, pyrat, pirrat and pyrrat.
Excellent! This was very much needed!
This channel is still criminally underrated. Thank you for the excellent storytelling!
People are piling in here now too tho
So happy I was recommended this channel, great video 👍🏾
I liked this small detour from the usual content. Which I love
Oh boy! You've gone and talked about one of my favorite subjects: AGH, so here goes:
I have some tangential experience with commercial publishing and I can tell you many publishing houses, even some with rather respectable names, hire 'in-house' writers to produce work, novels, usually. They publish these as if they all came from a single writer, but in fact they have several writers, and may rotate them over time. A rather famous crime novelist is famous for this, although I will give him credit for at least putting his slaves...err...partners' names on the cover.
So, I'm almost certain that AGH was produced more or less this way. The publisher had several scribblers toiling away at some miserly rate of pay per word or page, given a general idea or outline of the desired story, and then edited and touched up by an editor before going to press.
Do I have to say the purpose of publishing is to make money? Good. Glad you understand that.
Where did these ink-stained wretches get their material? Well, more or less, the same way I get the material for my many short stories and novels: I steal from the best. I have the freedom now to choose what stories I want to tell, but in my youth I wrote what the guy who signed my checks told me to write. Like any good whore, I did it for the money. I suspect the quill-molesters of "Captain Johnson's" day were much the same.
Indeed, one can assume that the more didactic sections were written at the behest and instruction of the publisher, or his investors. It may certainly be justly assumed that the heavy handed political and moral philosophy was generated by someone in control of the publishing process, who wanted certain messages and ideas to get public circulation.
But, overall, the point was to make a buck, so, gee, guess what, it's not exactly an accident that the cover illustrations of Bonny and Read show women with bared breasts waving weapons in the air. I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess that neither of those women, or any others who might have worked with a crew, went into battle with their nay-nays swinging in the breeze, any more than a pirate who wanted to live to see tomorrow wore knee-high boots aboard ship or into combat on the water. Excellent way to drown or slip in the blood and guts,
All that being said, by all means read it. You can skip the boring parts and get some sense of what historical fiction writers were doing with their craft. Just as I usually base my lies...err....stories on some reality, there is no doubt some facts can be picked out of the detritus. I've got no problem with someone writing a novel about Libertalia, giving us a detailed story about the first Pirate Republic of Madagascar, but nobody today is going to think it's history. If an author were to try to present it as a 'found manuscript' the style of writing alone, no matter how well mimicked, would prove it was fiction. (And if written as if in the 17th Century would be almost unreadable for the modern audience, who can barely read a sentence longer than ten words.)
If one is so naive as to think that Treasure Island is a true story about a young boy sailing with pirates to find treasure, then one is indeed lost. Read A General History the same way you'd read Stevenson, a bloody good yarn about pirates that has the ring of truth. This is my favorite word when it comes to writing: verisimilitude. Fiction should SEEM as if it's true, even when it's lying through its teeth.
(And yes, I sympathize with your plea for $. Us scribblers find it damned hard to live by our wits. I could never do it and still can't, as demonstrated by the lackluster sales of my own pirate novel, A Pirate's Life for Me, available as an ebook on Amazon. It's cheap as hell and still....oh, never mind. I write for fun now and Devil Take the Hindmost!)
Captain Charles Johnson: Me when I purposefully spread misinformation on the internet
I remember reading parts of A General History in school in the 70s, and then almost every show on TV was based on it, then came the internet and we finally started hearing the truth, at first we didn't know what to believe, but it's like everything else we heard while growing up, it was almost all baloney!
"It could be hailed as the Bible of pirate history - if you turn the cross upside down & write the number of the beast upon it."🤣 💥
The £50 for Robinson Crusoe seems to have been the advance fee paid to Defoe for writing the book, not the price a purchaser would have to pay to buy the book. Apart from that obvious mistake, excellent and thoughtful video.
Truth is found between lies.
Books are entertainment center during the day
Great video. How much do we really know about our past ....??? .a set of lies agreed upon...
To add I think this book, especially its first volume also tried to direct attention to those pirates who go caught or killed by successful government actions like Blackbeard, Bart Roberts and Rackham, Bonny and Mary. There were many who were more successful in avoiding the law, yet they seem to get the get pushed back or like in the case of beggar Every/Avery the story was presented as a cautionary tale. Indeed stuff like Ned Low's death in an hurricane may be a real rumor (even if he possibly took refuge among the Spanish much like Taylor for example, even if he was likely notably poorer), but it certainly served the anti-piracy agenda of showing how rules of God and man both condemned piracy. Pirates do not deserve statues or honors but the book is indeed anti-piracy propaganda and should be noted as biased for this reason too. It wanted pirates to be interesting, but still to fail.
The one thing the narrator does, is not consider how when it was written, many stories were changed an name changed to save men from the rope. This is a great video, but equally as hollow as the book itself. It has just as much information without any actual proof of claims. So either could be correct of wrong I say it's in the middle. But one thing that is a fallacy, is applying modern day perspective to history. No one ill really know unless we lived it and felt it. Otherwise, it's ALL perspective of history.
I would like to be a bigger rogue every now and then. It seems like these guys had a lot of fun
Which is more reliable, the "Historia Augusta" for roman history or "
A General History of the Pyrates:" for pirate history
Awesome video
The History of Star Wars from the Empire's Perspective
By Darth Vader
the pirate version of tall tales used for propaganda.
Bbbbut Colin Woodard told me it was all accurate! 😭
And I have to add you to DNR because you're advertising shirts in my home feed. I don't know what youtube randomly decided to start shoving people's webstores in the home feed but now I'm DNRing those channels
Uh… I think you’re mixed up.
Channels aren’t doing this, it’s entirely RUclips, but even if not, why would this bother you?
It’s genuinely confusing… these people put in hard work to make content, and hopefully earn sone money too, RUclips pays less all the time, ripping off smaller creators like this in favor of boosting huge creators like beast.
But when these creators make a shop where they sell their own merchandise on their own website so they can break free of the grip of RUclips, that’s where you draw the line and unsubscribe?
Why? I’m really asking cuz I do not understand…
I like this channel, I wish him the best, I hope he makes more merch, his designs are really cool, and I hope he sells a ton of it… it will probably allow him the opportunity and financial freedom to put more into their work.
Is it just that thin line of products you see listed under the video in your feed that’s upsetting to you?
Or am I missing something?
I can’t see how this could possibly be objectionable to anyone!
If your gunna get pissed, get pissed at RUclips for pumping in 3x more ads than a few years ago, that’s annoying and likely affects you and the rest of us… but selling a hoodie with a skull print on it… come on…
If you click the products the push the little button that’s an i with a circle around it, it explains what’s going on.
I used to believe the cliches on that book but your channel has educated my lazy ass a little. so thanks!
20:01 aaaah, so its a very old tradition for the newspaper to lie.
i still do and i think Gunpowder is very wrong here.Content isnt it after all...
" Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
'Mark Twain' - Life on the Mississippi
Hornigold. Great pirate name
What's your thoughts on the piratepedia?
Thrown in trash!🏴☠🏴☠
Interesting....
The only complaint I have about this video isn't even topical, I just find myself distracted by the subtitles. If in the future you could pull those out of the video stream and into their own subtitles/closed captions stream (all video file formats support that, and so does RUclips) that would be greatly appreciated!
Doesn't help the orange and black nearly blends into the book pages.
good video
Buy my new book! The Mexican revolution by Captain Tommy Wiseau!
Ever since the Enlightenment society has been stuck in this cycle of hegelian dialectics but sometimes.. both choices are evil.
It appears now more than ever we have been making shit up since day one. Thanks.
if your a conspiracy theroist yes....
@@Ickie71 no nothing to do with conspiracy. Just in general. The older you are the more the truth is discovered. I'm subscribed to this channel becuase I enjoy it very much .
@@raymond5194 im 54....
Your voice sounds different this video.
I've read A General History several times and it's a hard read if you're not used to reading 400 year old English. I've no intention of reading it again. :)
Da foe or da friend?
The truth is always found in lie bury
Your the only person ive ever seen slag off this Book?whats your problem with it you seem to use it as a source in many of your videos? and i must ask you what country are you from?
That book it’s half truth but mostly contradictions and made up stories.
@@piraticvs oh ok you knew the author did you?it was written in 1724....i doubt hat very much, it was also a Best seller for decades!
@@Ickie71 we literally have more access nowadays to period sources and compare them side by side with the book and see all its contradictions, lies, and made up stories. I don’t care if it was a “bestseller” it’s still a book full of LIES
😊👍
'Cos the Good Book is a book and it is good and it's a book ©