Bad Book

[Ol Man From the Sea]

Just visited the book store and noticed several copies of "The Complete Idiots Guide to Pirates." I could not resist a look, but now I wish I had. Said something like;

All your clothes should be cotton?

Calico is a good pattern?

You must wear an ear ring?

WOW! They may have something right in that book, but it ain't worth the time to find it. Don't bother with this one!

[Patrick Hand]

Yah... they got a LOT wrong.....

Pyrates playing concertina's........ Yah right.... (Concertinas wern't invented untill the 1820's)

And the author tries too hard to place women into the Pyrate history......

Did I mention that the author got a lot of stuff wrong............

[Salty]

Just visited the book store and noticed several copies of "The Complete Idiots Guide to Pirates." I could not resist a look, but now I wish I had.  Said something like;

All your clothes should be cotton?

Calico is a good pattern?

You must wear an ear ring?

WOW! They may have something right in that book, but it ain't worth the time to find it.  Don't bother with this one! 

AH hence why " IDIOTS" Guide to pyracy

[Rumba Rue]

Well I happen to know the gal that wrote the book very well.

Gail Selinger is a walking history book.

Yes the way the book is written is somewhat not very well, due to a lot of missing information that can be found elsewhere.

The book is simply a guide to what's what and who's who.

[Ol Man From the Sea]

Sorry RumbaRue, I have no problem with missing. My problem is with wrong. I only looked at the book for a few minutes and found so many errors that I can't trust any thing in the book to be right. Sad really.

[Lady Alyx]

Are you SURE squeeze box's where only from the 1820's? Hmmm I guess you are right

accordian history

Also there are women in pirate history....

[Patrick Hand]

Are you SURE squeeze box's where only from the 1820's? Hmmm I guess you are right

Yah... I was kinda dissapointed when I found that out..... And they show Pyrates with concertinas in ALL the movies....... But they were not invented untill about 1820.... A harmonica is just as period.......

Also there are women in pirate history...

Yah... there were female Pyrates...... but they were increadibly rare.....

But this is Plunder, and not Twill.....so I wont get into that arguement here.....

[Tartan Jack]

What I can say is that it reflects many of the popular MYTHS about the period and piracy.

It is good to KNOW what the myths are, so when we are faced with them, we know EXACTLY what the people are talking about. Thus, we can phrase our answers in a way to avoid the myths without it being as "THAT'S BULL!!" (even if it is). In that way, we can correct by informing without embarassing.

That is how I deal with many of the Scottish myths and legends, such as what "Tartan" means (technically the material, not the pattern), the sett (the pattern), and their age, meaning, and the age and historic development of the kilt (NOTHING like what was in Braveheart has EVER been seen in anything CLOSE to that period and the garment itself is SO far off a belted plaid/great kilt as to be laughable).

Knowing the misconception helps me avoid unintentionally embarassing someone actually interested in the matter (and thereby angering them in the process, so they are "fight" mode and not "learn" mode). Knowing the misconception can prepare me for addressing it in public in a manner that takes out the underlying thoughts FIRST, then I can "take the wind out of thge sails" of the error, and refill it with REALITY!

(The same thing applies to other things, ESPECIALLY RELIGIOUS ISSUES-> which is enough off topic, I'll go no further. I'll just say that I INTENTIONALLY watch programs I SEVERELY disagree with to listen to the arguement and see WHY it is incorrect and the thought process behind it. Thus, when I meet someone who actually BELIEVES it, I can understand it an deal with it in a careful, logical, sensitive, and helpful manner.)

EXAMPLE:

Pirate flags:

"Aren't they neat. I especially love the X,Y, and Z ones. To bad there isn't any period documentation for most of them." Then I can discuss WHICH ones are proven and which are not.

INSTEAD of:

That's crap! Rackham (or fill in name) never flew that!!!" Then it opens a heated arguement.

[kass]

Off topic for a moment.

You know, Wages, I don't think I realised that I'm having the same fight with Pirates that I had with Irish and Scots 10-15 years ago. I'm fighting the same misconceptions, the same fantasy-cum-history, the same scaredness and dedication to things that never were.

Thanks for illuminating that so well!

Back on topic: if a book purports to be a guide to any subject, it should not be full of myths about that subject. Unless, of course, the title is "Pirate Myths".

I've never found any of these "Idiots' Guides" to be useful in the least.

Instead get a copy of Johnson. Or "Under the Black Flag".

[Patrick Hand]

Outta fairness, I decided to take another look at The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates by Gail Selinger with W. Thomas Smith Jr.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates is orginized in a logical manner, and like the other Idiots guides, has the little info boxes and "did you know" info "tid-bit's" scattered throughout. If someone is looking for a specfic reference, it is easy to find in the Idiot's version.

As I mentioned in my first post, there are some errors in the book, but that dosen't make it a "BAD" book.... I think along with Under the Black Flag by David Coredingly (which has some errors also...) Both books make a usefull introduction to Pyracy.

Some of the errors are debated by "Hard-core Pyrate reenactors" ...

A Pyrate may or may not have worn much jewelry aboard ship. That was a persomial preference if he hadn't already sold it: gambled it, or given it to some prostitute. The one item a pirate definitely wore-and wore all the time, on ship and off- was an earring.

and "is the Sailors Knife shown on page 141 period ?

And some errors like Pyrates musicians playing a concertina (not invented untill the 1820's), cause me to question some of the research. That is the largest flaw with The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates... if such basic errors are that easy to spot, what other ones are there ?

Over-all, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates along with Under the Black Flag Would be good books for someone that is interested in Pyracy, and it looking to basic information to build from. Both books contain errors, but untill you know the basic stuff, how are you going to know what is wrong or right.

Untill someone writes a better introduction to Pyracy book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pirates and Under the Black Flag are the best we have.

[Fox]

I've been holding back on this one, but...

Must've been last year that I flicked through the Idiot's Guide in a bookshop and got so disillusioned that I had to put it down before I started ranting to complete strangers.

Perhaps the earrings quotation is a good example of what my problem is. For a book to be a useful starter it is absolutely essential that it is right, or at least right to an acceptable degree. More experienced and knowledgeable readers and researchers can read a book and spot parts they disagree with, but this is rarely (if ever) the case with beginners. Sure, no book has ever yet been written for beginners that has met with 100% approval by experts, but that's no reason to knowingly accept glaring errors. And the trouble with this particular example is that I'm sure Gail Selinger was on the old pirates email list on the numerous occasions we discussed the lack of evidence for earrings way back when. So unless the bit about pirates always wearing earrings was inserted by a hapless editor or Mr Smith without the knowledge of Ms. Selinger it seems as if she has either forgotten or deliberately ignored well founded research in pursuit of the popular market. Sorry Gail, but tell me I'm wrong.

There's a big difference between writing less-than-scholarly works for the mass market and writing stuff that's wrong. Just because it ain't highbrow (and let's face it, who would expect any book ostensibly written for "idiots" to be highbrow?) is no excuse for not getting it right.

Pat wrote "...untill you know the basic stuff, how are you going to know what is wrong or right". All the more reason to make sure that the basic stuff is right.

I didn't buy the book that day in the book shop, but I'm half tempted to now to, as Wages says, prepare myself for the new wave of myth that is doubtless coming.

[capnwilliam]

Hey, this book (which I never read, and don't intend to) must be worth something: if only for the great discussion it's caused on this list!

Capt. William

[John_Young]

I found all the Idiots and Dummy type books for bare bones information. However I've also found them all to be mistaken or perpetuating stereotypes.

For instance the Idiots Guide to Professional Wrestling is laughably error-filled to say the least... While the Guide to Classical Guitar is actually useful for the first 6 months of learning how to play.

But the Complete Idiots guide for Pirates is useful if your primary of piracy is entertaining the younger set...

[Jamaica Rose]

Before I begin, let me make the disclosure that Gail Selinger, author of this book, is a good friend of mine, and actually the reason that I am involved with piracy at all.

Though I think it is a good book, especially for those new to piracy, there is a lot I could quibble with in the Idiot's Guide to Pirates. There are some mistakes and gross generalizations in the book. Such as the concertina discussion started above -- The Idiot's guide claims "The most sought after-musicians owned concertinas, lyres, and bagpipes". I agree with the bagpipes, but concertinas are too modern, and "lyres"? LYRES? That's a hold over from Greek and Roman times. I would personally would have said fiddlers, drummers, and pipers were the common musicians on board pirate ships. I have even read of hautboys (oboes). In talking to Gail Selinger, she said the "lyre" part was something the editors added, having seen that she mentioned it in the chapter about ancient pirates. They just took it out of context.

I didn't find anywhere that said pirates wore ONLY cotton, but the book does mention cotton, linen, silk, and other fabrics.

The book says "calico was a popular pattern." (Not GOOD pattern -- whatever that means). From my reading other sources, calico WAS a common starting in the 1690s and early 1700s (printed cotton fabrics from Calcutta were starting to be imported to Europe in large amounts) but the designs at the time were small designs - small diamonds and paisleys with a lot of background color around them, widely spread apart, not like modern calico designs with larger designs crammed up next to each other. It's confusing, because the term "calico" first just referred to fabric from Calcutta, much of which was cotton (though at first the Europeans thought it was linen), and it may or may not have been printed. Printing houses for calico were soon set up in England, Germany and other places.

I also disagree with the book's statement that "The one item a pirate definitely wore --- and wore all the time, on ship and off -- was an earring". First - I think a historian should be real careful when saying something "always" or "never" happened. Much better to say "usually" or something was "common". Earrings were discussed at length on the Pirates e-list a while back, and IIRC the general consensus was there was very little clear documentation about sailors or pirates wearing or not wearing earrings, but there was a LOT of speculation. I personally wouldn't make any blanket statements about earrings.

On pg. 171 of the book it says how red is an expensive color, because the cochineal bugs from which they got the red dye, were small, hard to collect and process to make a little dye. That may have been true in the early 1600s. But I also know that red was a common color for waistcoats and other garments in the Admiralty Slops Contracts during the late 1600s and 1700s. Perhaps there was a different source for red dye. I've read that someone originally wanted blue for the navy waistcoats, but the red fabric was cheaper, so they went with red.

In talking with various authors, I have learned not to necessarily blame an author for mistakes in their books. I brought up several mistakes to Benerson Little of things I found in the "Sea Rovers Practice", and it turns out they were changes his editor made, unbeknownst to him. For instance, in the first few pages, it mentions "Peter Drake" -- pg. 4 "To refer to the rovers as pirates is to insult them. After all, men have been knighted for similar acts -- witness Peter Drake and Henry Morgan, for example, although technically theirs were entirely legitimate (or at least royally condoned) acts of violence in support of material and political gain." Ben told me he had written it only as "Drake" in that instance, and did not give a first name (figuring most everyone would know who he was talking about without giving a first name). Later in his book, he does mention a Peter Drake (another person), and the editor must have seen that, and added the same first name to the first Drake. Ben was furious with his editor when I pointed this out, for it was not that way in the galleys that he approved.

Gail not only had an editor, but a co-writer (though she did the bulk of the writing), and she was only given one day to approve her galleys. She told me how they kept wanting to change things, and she had to carefully pick her battles, and decide which changes to really fight against. When she signs books, there is a date she always corrects by hand because the book has it wrong.

There is a lot of interesting, new information in Gail's book. I'm frustrated that it is not footnoted and referenced. I would love to know where a lot of the information came from. Knowing there are some mistakes, I'm reluctant to trust new information if I don't know where it came from. Luckily, I can always check straight with Gail if I really need to know. I do think the book is written in a very interesting, easily accessible manner. I think it is a great book for those just starting to learn about piracy.

Safe harbours and full tankards,

--Jamaica Rose

www.noquartergiven.net

[Ol Man From the Sea]

There is a lot of interesting, new information in Gail's book.  I'm frustrated...

FRUSTRATED, that’s the word. As I said I only looked at the book for a few minutes. At first, I found some statements that I wanted to be true. Then I started finding enough errors to be unable to trust anything. I found myself not wanting to read more because I could not trust it. My resulting frustration is what prompted this thread. I will say that my problem is with the book and not necessarily the author. I understand a little about editors and deadline etc. I didn't mean offence to your and Rumba's friend.

The book says "calico was a popular pattern." (Not GOOD pattern -- whatever that means).

Ya I didn't say that right, what threw me was calling calico "a pattern"

Safe harbours and full tankards

Thanks! but they are less fun that way.

[Jamaica Rose]

about editors and deadline etc.  I didn't mean offence to your and Rumba's friend.

No offence taken. I was just posting to add to the discussion, and help set the record straight. I think this discussion is valuable.

[Sir Eric]

Some of you may not want to hear this... it may cut to the very core of your piratical passion... but it's true and you'll just have to accept it:

Some people LIKE to perpetrate the hollywood, mythical, historically inacurate and wildly stereotypical image of pirates. Some people couldn't give two squirts about what pirates were "really" like. Some folks just want to dress in stripey red black and gold outfits with fishnet stockings, plastic hooks and run around saying "arrr hearty!" For these people, the book is exactly what they want.

When people want something, somebody else will market it to them. That's kinda the way our capitalist society works. We capitalize on such things. You want a pirate in a pimp hat? Fine with me as long as the check cashes.

You all know how much I respect the historical research and hard work that the school of re-enactment/re-creation puts in to provide educational presentations, and I know it stings to see a publication that is less than accurate on the shelves... but just consider it a "gateway" drug... something that gets them interested, whets their appitites and turns them on to the "hard" stuff.