The book focuses on the phenomenon of predation during the closing decades of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century in Indias western littoral. It attempts a material history of piracy, locating its antecedents, its social context, and its ramifications at a crucial time of political transition. Alongside, it revisits the idea of piracy as a category that was largely constituted by regimes of power and regulation in the high seas and in littoral waters. In
the case of India and the Indian Ocean, the pirate was a particularly maligned figure thanks to the discourse put forward by the English East Company. The book unravels the making of such a discourse,
while remaining attentive to fissures and tensions within the discourse.