Here is a dazzling array of swashbuckling pirates, picaroons, and sea rovers pitted against the often feckless representatives of an outpost government authority in the Chesapeake Bay region. It is an exciting and dramatic 200-year history that begins grimly with the starving time in the Virginia colony in 1609 and ends with the peaceful resolution of the Othello affair with the French in 1807. In between lies a full panoply of violent and bizarre...