"Most confrontations, viewed from the wide angle of history, are minor disputes, sparks that quickly die out. But every now and then, someone strikes a match that lights up the whole planet."
Steven Johnson is the bestselling author of twelve books, including Where Good Ideas Come From, Farsighted, and The Ghost Map. He’s the host and cocreator of the Emmy–winning PBS/BBC series How We Got to Now, and the host of the podcast American Innovations. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Marin County, California, with his wife and three sons.
“A kaleidoscopic rumination on the ways in which a single
event, and the actions of a handful of men with no obvious access
to the levers of state power, can change the course of history. . .
. Steven Johnson treats us to fascinating digressions on the
origins of terrorism, celebrity and the tabloid media; the tricky
physics of cannon manufacture; and the miserable living conditions
of the average seventeenth-century seaman.” —The New York
Times Book Review
“Steven Johnson argues with verve and conviction in his thoroughly
engrossing Enemy of All Mankind ... Because Enemy of All Mankind
offers, among its many pleasures, a solid mystery story, it would
be wrong to reveal the outcome. But it’s surprising. So, too, are
the many larger themes that Mr. Johnson persuasively draws from his
seaborne marauders...All the author’s more surprising suppositions
are not merely stapled onto the narrative but seem to have grown
there effortlessly during the course of a spirited, suspenseful,
economically told tale whose significance is manifest and whose
pace never flags.” —The Wall Street Journal
“... [a] page-turner of a book ... we can thank Johnson for combing
the archives, describing in vivid detail the life of pirates that
we thought we knew—most likely through motion pictures—when in
truth we didn’t ... Enemy of all Mankind covers lots of territory,
including the beginnings of the British Empire, and it’s a good
read, made all the better by Johnson’s clever storytelling and an
unforgettable pirate named Henry Every.” —The Washington Post
“It is the perfect book to cozy up to during a pandemic. . . . In
addition to providing captivating ‘yo ho ho and a bottle of rum’
action, the author examines the geopolitical and cultural
implications of Every’s spasm of violence. His subject changed the
very nature and geography of piracy in the eighteenth
century.” —USA Today
“Enough adventures to fill a Netflix series . . .
[Johnson] skillfully makes sweeping historical points from
bloody swashbuckling details.” —Star Tribune
“... entertaining and erudite ... Johnson's lucid prose and
sophisticated analysis brings these events to vibrant life. This
thoroughly enjoyable history reveals how a single act can
reverberate across centuries.” —Publishers
Weekly (starred review)
“Johnson is one of those polymath writers who links events and
subjects most of us wouldn’t see as related, always to enlightening
effect ... intriguing...relevant to our own world. Johnson doesn’t
just write about the heyday of piracy; he connects it to the growth
of nation-states, the history of the first multinational
corporation, the origins of democracy and the birth of the tabloid
media, among other things ... an amazing story, but the real one
Johnson tells in Enemy of All Mankind is even more so.” —The Tampa
Bay Times
“Johnson weaves a tapestry of treasure, tribunals, emperors,
atrocities, and a pirate’s life at sea ... Consummate popular
history: fast-paced, intelligent, and entertaining.” —Library
Journal
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