Acknowledgements

This book is the result of a research grant in history, financed by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), which also has provided funding for publishing the book with full open access. Research for the book was carried out between 2013 and 2018, mainly at the Department of History, Lund University, which also cofunded part of the project. In December 2016 I joined Linnaeus University and its Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, where the project was concluded with generous support from the Centre. I am most grateful to all of these institutions for their support and for providing me with the facilities and favourable conditions for carrying out the research for this book.

Numerous people have contributed directly or indirectly to the book. I would like to thank all my colleagues at Lund University, where the Global History Seminar Series, coordinated by Joachim Östlund and myself, generated many stimulating discussions, and the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences, which is one of the most interesting research environments today for a researcher working on colonialism and colonial history. I also want to thank the generally helpful and competent staff at libraries and archives in Sweden, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Singapore and the United States, who over the years have helped me locate the sources and literature on which the book is founded.

Several colleagues have read and commented on various parts of the manuscript. I especially want to thank Bruce Buchan, Griffith University, and Gunnel Cederlöf and Hans Hägerdal, both at Linnaeus University, for their valuable comments and suggestions on different parts of the text. Needless to say, any omissions or mistakes are entirely my own responsibility.

Last but not least I am obliged to my family − Isabella, Miriam, Erik, Leo and Vincent – for their continuous moral support and encouragement throughout the duration of the project. They have often had little choice but to share my interest in piracy as a cultural and historical phenomenon, and I am happy to say that they have generally done so with great enthusiasm.