Help with a dissertation idea -Pirates!! Calling all academics!

[0ldboy]

Hi everyone. Hope this is the right place to post this.

I'd love for you folks to help me regarding ideas for my dissertation please.

OK its my final year at uni and its dissertation time.

For this coming Thursday I have to give in an essay of 1000 words (not much at all) with ideas for my topic, reference to historians etc etc, books names blah blah, perhaps debates in that area etc.

OK thing is I spoke to one of my lectures back in May. She asked me if I had any ideas and I said yup I'd like to do something on pirates. I wasn't sure then what area and I'm still not too sure now.

Areas I've thought about are:

Pirates in particular like Captain Kidd, Henry Morgan, maybe Edward Teach, Olivier Levasseur. (Quite like this, especially Morgan (as he is local, came from near where I live) and the french pirate Levasseur who seems very interesting.

Romanticism: How pirates are portrayed today in film, books etc. (Not too keen on that, its what my lecturer suggested)

Captain Kidds Treasure: Probably a no-go. But I'd like to see what you all think.

Pirates Role in the founding of the British Empire: For example Niall Furguson argues that the foundations of the British Empire were built by English pirates (Henry Morgan for example).

That's about it for ideas really.

If anyone has more ideas or anything to add I'd love to hear them.
Also if anyone can give me any historians, books, series etc that might help in anything I'd appreciate it a billion.

Cheers everyone

[Seleukos]

Moved to the VV. You will get more help there.

[hellheaven1987]

Personally I have very little knowledge about Carribean pirates, so I cannot provide much helps; however, I do have some knowledge about Japanese/Chinese pirates operated durng Ming Dynasty, especially some of them might be my ancestors (my grandfather's hometown was a small fish town on Zhejiang, which was major pirate nest during that time, not to mention my family name "Zheng" was a major name adopted by most of important Japanese/Chinese pirates).

[0ldboy]

Firstly. thanks for your post hellheaven.
Thing is I know zilch about Eastern pirates!
Although I find it so so interesting regarding your ancestors. If I had more of a clue about the other side of the world regarding pirates it would have been an area I would have loved to have looked into.
Thanks man

[Lysimachos11]

First of all, define what pirates you're talking about. Like hellheaven indicated, pirates existed in a huge number of times and places, like the Vikings or Cilician pirates in antiquity. Secondly, you should be wary of grouping even such pirates together, as they most likely had no loyalties outside their own ship or group.

For ideas (1000 words is really short btw):
-Role of privateers in the Anglo-French wars.
-Role of pirates in technological advancements. For instance, in ship types: Dunkirk privateers evolved the frigate, a very important technological advancement.
-Was there a pirate code of conduct (with which you could relate the Romantic ideas of pirates) and did they adhere to an idea of just war?

For sources I'd suggest you google some Osprey books, for a 1000 word essay the quality might suffice, and it's always convenient to check their source material.

Good luck!

PS see if you can find this book on the internet: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/stor...9781855327061/ (google it with the right keywords)

[0ldboy]

First of all, define what pirates you're talking about. Like hellheaven indicated, pirates existed in a huge number of times and places, like the Vikings or Cilician pirates in antiquity. Secondly, you should be wary of grouping even such pirates together, as they most likely had no loyalties outside their own ship or group.

For ideas (1000 words is really short btw):
-Role of privateers in the Anglo-French wars.
-Role of pirates in technological advancements. For instance, in ship types: Dunkirk privateers evolved the frigate, a very important technological advancement.
-Was there a pirate code of conduct (with which you could relate the Romantic ideas of pirates) and did they adhere to an idea of just war?

For sources I'd suggest you google some Osprey books, for a 1000 word essay the quality might suffice, and it's always convenient to check their source material.

Good luck!

PS see if you can find this book on the internet: http://www.ospreypublishing.com/stor...9781855327061/ (google it with the right keywords)

Hey Lisimachos, thanks for your helpful response.
Yup about narrowing the topic down, I will be looking to talk about pirates in the Caribbean, as I have a lack of knowledge elsewhere and I think to start to learn about other time periods and locations of pirates then I'll make more work for myself. (I know it sounds lazy but I'd prefer this to be easier than hard )

Yup Ospery are great, got few books myself there. I'll use them for sure in my research. Thanks for that mate.

And thanks for some really interesting topic proposals. I really like the idea of the technological side that you suggested and also I'm fond on the Anglo-French Wars.
In fact all 3 are great I might spend some time today looking into each topic seeing what info there is briefly.

Again thanks dude, been a real help

PS Thanks for the book link, google book searches are very handy Im gonna give it a shot now.
Yup got a limited preview of it on google: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=n...age&q=&f=false

[eisenkopf]

Hm, maybe it's obvious and I don't get it, but in order to discuss dissertation ideas it's necessary to know more about the scope of the thesis and the general background. What are we talking about? 50 pages, or a hundred? Historical, political or economic background/focus? Possible methods of research?

[0ldboy]

Hm, maybe it's obvious and I don't get it, but in order to discuss dissertation ideas it's necessary to know more about the scope of the thesis and the general background. What are we talking about? 50 pages, or a hundred? Historical, political or economic background/focus? Possible methods of research?

Well that's the reason why I set up this topic so I could get ideas. I'm still thinking and deciding. (You probably think its last minute - because it is! But I'd have started sooner if I had had the chance trust me ) The points you made about the size and focus, well size it can be anywhere between 12,000 - 15,000 words. In regards to historical, political or economic focus, I'm probably going to be looking into all three, this might give me a bit more to talk about but if I had to narrow it down it would probably be a political focus...

Methods of research, well a bit of everything. I will be taking into account various historians interpretations, their arguments if any, I'll try my best to find any possible relevant primary sources of course as that's always good - questioning provenance etc. Historical reliability etc.

[eisenkopf]

Well that's the reason why I set up this topic so I could get ideas. I'm still thinking and deciding. (You probably think its last minute - because it is! But I'd have started sooner if I had had the chance trust me ) The points you made about the size and focus, well size it can be anywhere between 12,000 - 15,000 words. In regards to historical, political or economic focus, I'm probably going to be looking into all three, this might give me a bit more to talk about but if I had to narrow it down it would probably be a political focus...

Methods of research, well a bit of everything. I will be taking into account various historians interpretations, their arguments if any, I'll try my best to find any possible relevant primary sources of course as that's always good - questioning provenance etc. Historical reliability etc.

Okay, I was confused, because where I come from, a dissertation is a PhD thesis, and what you describe would be a Bachelor thesis. Well, I've supervised a few Bachelor theses, although in a different field of study. Since Lysimachus has already provided some good ideas, I'll give you my more general 2 cents of advice:

As "Pirates!" is already a kinda flashy theme, I'd make the actual key research objective/question/hypothesis as dry as possible. Otherwise you might run the risk of giving the supervisor the idea that it's a fanboy project (which is not bad in itself, but you should limit any fanboyism to fueling your motivation and enthusiasm, and not letting it influence what you actually write).

Also, if you think that your thesis is too narrow or too easily answered, you probably have found just the thesis that fits your project. From my experience, most students are too ambitious when it comes to research design, and want to accomplish too much within a short time frame.

Give us an update when you have decided on the exact topic, and good luck!

[Optimus Marcus Ulpius Traianus]

what about pirates of antiquity? they were as interesting as those of the 16th and 17th century some even took Ceaser captive at one point if im not mistaken.