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233 and Philonous (1713) are overshadowed by the ‘‘unavoidable’’ triumph in Siris of esoteric wisdom, the Christian ‘‘mystical alchemy’’ of tar water, and the Neoplatonic subordination of matter. Berkeley is considered in contexts with which he is seldom associated. Chapters highlight his subversive literary procedures and rhetorical techniques , the resonance of his visuallanguage doctrine with the medieval tradition of the Book of the World, the alchemical background of Siris, the role of Christian apologetics in Alciphron, the eschatological and utopian character of Berkeley’s Bermuda project, and (most puzzlingly) how the Cathar characterization of matter as the source of evil helps in explaining Berkeley’s immaterialism . It is this last theme that raises questions about the underlying assumptions of the whole book, because unlike the Cathars, Berkeley does not think of matter and the natural world as the source of evil. Rather, for Berkeley, thinking that matter exists apart from what we perceive is the source of error that leads human beings to overlook God’s presence in the harmony and beauty of nature . Berkeley’s commonsense affirmation of the world is thus hardly in keeping with the Cathar rejection of the material world or even the Platonic denigration of sensible objects. Indeed, Mr. Bradatan periodically has to acknowledge that Catharism and Platonism often seem to conflict with Berkeley ’s ‘‘terminology, methodological preferences, and rhetorical protocols,’’ and that this explains why Berkeley scholars dismiss the kind of approach he adopts. But this book will not change that perception, because it tries to show how Berkeley’s insistence on appealing to the real world of experience is undermined by his commitment to another world in which knowledge is the proper domain only of the initiated. Platonic, alchemical, apologetic, and utopian themes pop up in Berkeley’s thought; but Mr. Bradatan misses the chance to show how these lesser known aspects can be reconciled with the views for which Berkeley is well known. The irony here is that, in retrieving works like Alciphron and Siris in contexts that we today find quaint or antiquarian , Mr. Bradatan makes Berkeley interesting only by emphasizing how he appeals to out-of-fashion views in his own distinctive and uniquely modern way. He thus becomes interesting precisely by transforming those views rather than endorsing them; and in this way, he distances himself from them rather than drawing our attention more to them. Stephen H. Daniel Texas A&M University British Piracy in the Golden Age: History and Interpretation, 1660–1730, ed. Joel H. Baer. Volumes 1–4. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007. Pp. xxxvii ⫹ 1653. £350; $595. These are attractively produced and amply edited volumes. In Mr. Baer’s collection there are, for example, accounts of Henry Morgan and English freebooters in Central America, pirate news culled from London and Boston weeklies from 1696 to 1728, twelve well-known trials in Britain and the colonies from 1696 to 1726, some pamphlets relating to laws in effect (1726), and a project, in 1707, to ‘‘promote the repatriation of British pirates based at Madagascar,’’ which would bring their mythic pirate wealth to the coffers of 234 London. We read the dying speeches of malefactors and colonial sermons of Cotton Mather and Benjamin Colman. And we end where one can say English piracy began, with Captain Avery, in a fanciful biography (1809), and in popular ballads. All these items have Prefaces , Head Notes, and helpful Editorial Notes. They are introduced with an intelligent survey that examines ‘‘the emergence of English courts with the power to try pirates, a history of jurisdictional change with profound consequences in the period under discussion.’’ Essential reading is A Full and Exact Account of the Tryal of all the Pyrates, Lately Taken by Capt. Ogle (1723), which details the pirate career of ‘‘Black Bart’’ Roberts and ‘‘provides more miscellaneous information about a society of pirates than any other source from the golden age.’’ Roberts’s exploits were unsurpassed, even heroic; in less than five years his crews captured more than 400 vessels, and a partial estimate of ‘‘his victories along the slave coast and then off Brazil won him many volunteers and earnings estimated, in 2005 purchasing power, at almost 15 million .’’ From Mr. Baer, we learn...

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