Pirates and Constitutions!

I have a personal fondness of The Constitution, but also of constitutions in general.  Combined with the lore of pirates, the topic is as appealing as a cigar and mixed cocktail at the end of the day.  Peter Leeson's, soon to be published book, The Invisible Hook (a play on the term, the invisible hand) should be available soon and tackles this very subject.  It will make great summer reading around July 4th:

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 fifty 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.

Read more about Leeson's work on pirates here.