The Invisible Hook
The Hidden Economics of Pirates
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The Invisible Hook
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Narrated by:
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Jeremy Gage
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By:
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Peter T. Leeson
About this listen
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.Listeners also enjoyed...
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What listeners say about The Invisible Hook
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 24-04-18
Insighful and amusing
This book explains the golden age of piracy as a monument to human freedom and ingenuity.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 01-08-23
Really good
Interesting. Worth a read if you like pirates or economics. Winsome reader too. A fun gift perhaps.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 06-04-21
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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anto Curat
- 07-04-21
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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Overall1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 30-10-11
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