Piratical states : British imperialism in the Indian Ocean world, c.1780-1850 / Simon Layton

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Layton, Simon, author.

Series:

Cambridge oceanic histories

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pirates--Indian Ocean Region--History--18th century.

Pirates.

Pirates--Indian Ocean Region--History--19th century.

Great Britain--Colonies--Asia--History--18th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--Asia--History--19th century.

Indian Ocean Region--Colonization.

Indian Ocean Region.

Colonies.

Colonization.

Asia.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2026

Summary:

"This deeply researched, innovative study demystifies the way we think about the pirates of world history. Simon Layton encourages readers to look beyond eighteenth-century Atlantic paradigms of rogue individuals or revolutionary collectives, placing piracy as a concept at the heart of the British imperial project in Asia in the nineteenth century. Piratical States reveals an empire bent on wresting sovereignty over maritime space with its own forms of institutional and outsourced violence. A discourse developed in the official mind of colonial 'men-on-the-spot' castigated an array of indigenous seafaring communities and interrupted state-building across the corridors and chokepoints of global trade. In reports, diaries, correspondence, and memoranda, Britain's self-declared pirate-hunters retold history through a mythology of their own making, transforming piracy into an inherently political and racial category, legitimising the wholesale erasure of their enemies"-- Cambridge Core

Contents:

The Moghul’s admiral

Pirate protégés in a pacified gulf

Sundering sea people

The civilised savagery of Rajah Brooke

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed June 3, 2026)

Other Format:

Print version: Layton, Simon Piratical states

ISBN:

9781108695343

1108695345

OCLC:

1582439491

Publisher Number:

CIPO000360056

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license