Pirate lore, it turns out, has nothing on true accounts.

In a discussion of his new book Black Flags, Blue Waters, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin separates fiction from sometimes terrifying fact about the seafaring rascals and brutal, ruthless renegades who prowled America’s coasts in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He spotlights the stars of this so-called golden age of piracy, including the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain William Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Colonists at first supported pirates’ lawlessness in a display of solidarity against the British Crown, but later violently opposed them.

Dolin, who holds a Ph.D. in environmental policy and planning from MIT, is also the author of Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America.