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  • The Invisible Hook

  • The Hidden Economics of Pirates
  • By: Peter T. Leeson
  • Narrated by: Jeremy Gage
  • Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (33 ratings)

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The Invisible Hook

By: Peter T. Leeson
Narrated by: Jeremy Gage
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Summary

Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss - it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late 17th- and early 18th-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior.

Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits.

The Invisible Hook looks at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how pirates' search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy - a model they adopted more than 50 years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality. Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice - their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved that anarchy could be organized.

Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history's most colorful criminals, The Invisible Hook establishes pirates' trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.

©2009 Peter T. Leeson (P)2009 Audible, Inc.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Critic reviews

"Leeson hangs the meat of his pirate tale on a sturdy skeleton of economics.... The Invisible Hook is a delightful read, thanks to Leeson's engaging writing. He reduces a veritable mountain of facts and history into an entertainingly educational experience." (Barron's)

What listeners say about The Invisible Hook

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Insighful and amusing

This book explains the golden age of piracy as a monument to human freedom and ingenuity.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Really good

Interesting. Worth a read if you like pirates or economics. Winsome reader too. A fun gift perhaps.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

very good with some missed opportunities

very insighful, the delivery was dry though. coyld have been more exciting especially with such interesting material but overall I am satisfied and still highly recommend

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

great audiobook, well researched and entertaining.

this is a well researched book, entertaining and enlightening into the mind of the Pirates

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Patronising and Repetative

The author takes ideas obvious to anyone who took a moment to think about the realities of the life of a pirate in the period under discussion and presents them, rather patronisingly, as some sort of revelation (e.g. at one point Leeson helpfully reminds us that "pirates were people", presumably just in case the reader had not been blessed with this stunning epithany). Add to this the extremely repetative nature of the book and you have to conclude that either the author didn't really have enough material or he genuninely thinks his audience is insufficiently intelligent to understand even the most basic concepts without their being explained in terms that an intelligent child would find simplistic and then repeated ad nauseum. I resent this from a man who appears to be under the impression that the fact that a group of people in a particular set of circumstances acted in a perfectly rational way in order to improve the success of their endevours is some sort of insight rather than it just being evidence that most people act much as you might expect them to in a given situation. Well, much as you might expect were you were possessed of even a passing familiarity with the underlying motivations which drive humanity, i.e. the need to balance the "selfish" survival instinct and the "altruistic" need to coopperate with others in order to maximise the chances of staying alive long enough to produce the next generation. Its no wonder that Economists didn't see the the current economic crisis coming if this book reflects the understanding of human nature present amongst such experts in the field.

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3 people found this helpful