I'm a writer and director of nonfiction TV, and some years back I came across the story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read -- possibly in Sara Lorimar's "Booty." That started me researching the pirates of the 1714-1724 period. What kept my interest was what I'd never really known growing up: the democracy practiced on board pirate ships, along with the accident insurance provided -- in stark contrast to the British Navy policies of the time. Also, it seems that while the first anti-slavery sentiments may have arisen among the Quakers, the pirates of the West Indies (or some of them) were a close second. The fact that the "good guys" were protecting the growing slave trade is something that I only recently cottoned on to, joke intended...The moral turpitude of the time is breathtaking. Also of interest was the fact that, while some pirates were truly people to avoid at all costs (I don't see a lot of L'Ollonais re-enactors), folks like Blackbeard never actually killed anybody (except for that final battle which was, after all, a battle...) So it's all quite interesting, and I actually think that the Johnny Depp notion of the pirates as early rock & rollers obscures some of the truly radical anti-authoritarian aspects of the brethren of the coast. Some of this, and probably not enough, is in the serio-comic novel I finally wrote on my original inspirations, Bonny and Read: "The Legendary Adventures of the Pirate Queens," which you can find at the following link...
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+legendary+adventures+of+the+pirate+queens
So that's what got me started...And who knows where it'll lead?