Everyone knows something about the famous pirates of the Caribbean, but their Chinese counterparts were just as fascinating and far more numerous and powerful. This book, by one of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese piracy, is the best book in print on the topic. It immerses you in the pirates’ bloody and dangerous world— an experience both gripping and informative.

Tonio Andrade, Emory University

The Golden Age of Piracy in China is the first comprehensive scholarly study of piracy in Chinese waters from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Highly readable and meticulously researched by one of the world’s leading scholars on Chinese maritime history, the book vividly brings to light the hitherto largely untold history of piracy in the East and South China Seas. It is a major contribution to the global and cross-cultural history of piracy, based on an impressive range of primary sources from Chinese, Japanese, and European archives and collections.

Stefan Eklöf Amirell, Linnaeus University

Robert J. Antony not only succinctly summarizes the history of Asian piracy but also, in forty translated and annotated documents ranging from the early sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century, examines pirate eating habits, marriage, sexual morays, death-by-slicing torture, and even their guaranteed health care plans, with the Guangdong Pirate Pact of 1805 even stating: “If any of our brothers is wounded in the action the entire group consents to their medical care.” Independent female pirates, like Zheng Yi Sao, were also common, although on one occasion a pirate leader cut up his own sister into eighteen pieces so that her 'ghost' could protect his eighteen buried hoards of treasure. Readers, whether they be a student, professor, or general pirate hobbyist, will find these brief yet fascinating primary documents particularly informative and thought-provoking.

Bruce A. Elleman, US Naval War College

Robert Antony’s The Golden Age of Piracy in China is a unique resource. It contains, in one volume, both a straightforward historical narrative of piracy in maritime China during its heyday, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and a reader of primary sources from that period... [It] is suitable for many undergraduate courses that touch upon the subject of crime and predation, as well as curious members of the general reading public.

Ming Studies