Recent BooksNovember/December 2019 203Pirates: A New History, From Vikings to
Somali Raiders
BY PETER LEHR. Yale University
Press, 2019, 272 pp.Marque and Reprisal: The Spheres of
Public and Private War
BY KENNETH B. MOSS. University
Press o Kansas, 2019, 464 pp.In his lively, vivid history o pirates, Lehr
Änds some striking continuities from
ancient to modern times. Although
pirates are motivated above all by greed,
creed and religion have often inÁuenced
their choice o targets. The lure o large
rewards from little eort has always
attracted the impoverished. Careers tend
to be short, as much because o the
hazards o the sea as the threat o legal
sanction and punishment. Most pirates
have preferred to ambush their prey,
frightening the crew into surrender and
only Äghting their way onboard i neces-
sary. The best defense against pirates is
having a vessel faster than theirs. Regions
plagued by weak governance and local
corruption enable piracy. Certain coast-
lines have long been favorable hunting
grounds: in the 1990s, Somali pirates
“loitered in the approaches o the Bab
el-Mandeb in the Gul o Aden,” just as
John “Long Ben” Avery did in the
seventeenth century.
There has always been a Äne line
between piracy and privateering. Queen
Elizabeth I declared Sir Francis Drake to
be “her” pirate because the rival Spanish
suered the most from his depredations.
Moss’ account overlaps with Lehr’s book
in showing how otherwise illegal acts
could be sanctioned in the name o the
state under letters o marque and reprisal.
This thorough and thoughtful historyat a distance because o the feared
communist sympathies o France’s
leading nuclear scientists. In this neat,
enthralling study, Houghton wonders
why this successful intelligence opera-
tion was followed by the failure to
anticipate the Ärst Soviet nuclear test in
August 1949. He points to the incoher-
ence o the U.S. intelligence system
after the war and the complacent
underestimation o the capacities o a
communist government.
Power to the People: How Open
Technological Innovation Is Arming
Tomorrow’s Terrorists
BY AUDREY KURTH CRONIN.
Oxford University Press, 2019, 440 pp.
Alfred Nobel’s invention o dynamite
was a boon to major infrastructure
projects around the world, but the
explosive was also adopted by anarchists
determined to blow up heads o state.
A young sergeant named Mikhail
Kalashnikov Ägured out how to improve
the standard assault riÁe used by the
Soviet army in World War II. The gun
that still bears his name is easy to use,
reliable, and durable—and became the
weapon o choice for terrorists and
militias around the world. In this
meticulously researched book, Cronin
shows how groups such as the Islamic
State (or ) exploit new technologies
such as the Internet, smartphones,
autonomous vehicles, and artiÄcial
intelligence. Cronin hardly wants
innovation to stop just because o
potentially malign applications. Instead,
she argues that governments must
develop countermeasures to preempt
militants from co-opting innovations
to catastrophic eect.