Learning about piracy

I have borrowed from the local library Pirates: Predators of the Sea. I have mentioned the book on this post, without naming it. As I often say, we can find so many treasures in local libraries. This is how I prefer to find books: not always looking for them, but stumbling upon them on a bookshelf. I had wanted to learn more about historical piracy for a long while. I am not very far ahead in the book, but I have already learned a few things: that the artist Howard Pyle popularized the traditional image of the pirate, that flibustier is the root of the English word filibuster, that buccaneers, from the French boucaniers, were named because they smoked their meat over a buccan, i.e. a barbecue. In Québec, the word boucane means smoke. I used to think the buccaneers were named after the smoke of their canons. I was obviously wrong. Anyway, the book is a great source of information for anyone who wants to know the truth behind the Hollywood fantasy.