You're listening to A Book with Legs, a podcast presented by Smead Capital Management.

At Smead Capital Management, we advise investors who fear stock market failure.

You can learn more at Smeadcap.com or by calling your financial advisor.

Welcome to a book with legs podcast. I'm Cole Smead, CEO and portfolio manager here at Smead Capital Management. At our firm, we are readers, and we believe in the power of books to help shape

informed investors. In this podcast, we speak to great authors about their writing. The late great

Charlie Munger prescribed

using multiple mental models and analysis. We analyze their work through the lens of business,

markets, and people. From a young age, I loved the idea of pirates. My favorite Legos were

the pirate Legos. My favorite ride at Disneyland was Pirates of the Caribbean. I romanticize

about the Caribbean and today I may have found a kindred spirit. Richard Blakemore is joining

us to discuss his newly published book, Enemies of All, the Rise and Fall of the Golden Age

of Piracy. I want to make sure to give our listeners a little background on Richard.

He is an associate professor in social and maritime history at the University of Reading. Richard

has been writing and teaching about historical piracy and maritime empire for over a decade,

starting with his PhD at Cambridge University, continuing with his postdoctoral work at Oxford University.

Richard, thank you for joining me. I think I kind of have to kick it to you after I spilled my beans and told everybody and bared my soul about piracy.

What began as a child for you to draw you into this subject matter?

Thanks, Cole, for inviting me to be here.

And I also loved Lego Pirates.

And in fact, my six-year-old son now loves the very same Lego Pirates

have passed on down to him, and books and films about piracy.

So I guess there's always been that interest. I came into maritime

...