Book Review: Enemies of All by Richard Blakemore

Sometimes a book can be too thorough for its own good. You want to read a good story and learn a few things along the way, and instead get pelted by knowledge coming through a firehose.

Enemies of All is about piracy, a favorite subject of mine that I know a good deal about - yet after trying to absorb all this knowledge I feel dumber now than when I came in.

Enemies of All is extremely thorough. It starts out with the European discovery of the Americas and the colonizations by Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, then moves into the beginnings of piracy, the differences between piracy and privateering, and the many European wars that impacted the New World. There were many cool knowledge nuggets sprinkled throughout the book, but with so much knowledge coming at you in a pretty dry writing style it was hard to hold on to anything.

If you're looking for a textbook this is a good one; otherwise I'd say to skip. Six out of ten hot dogs.