If you are George Mason University economics professor Peter Leeson, you write a book on the economics of piracy. That book, The Invisible Hook, is a rollicking good read—more fun than any person should be allowed to have without a parrot, a hook, and an eye patch. Leeson's goal, however, is more than merely collecting entertaining pirate anecdotes.

Instead, he argues that the "rational choice [framework of economics] is the only way to truly understand flamboyant, bizarre, and downright shocking pirate practices." Accordingly, as indicated by the subtitle, this book is part of Leeson's larger and impressive research agenda on privately created law and order. That pirates are a suitable part of such an agenda becomes apparent, Leeson explains, once one realizes that pirates were stateless (and often violent) people who nonetheless organized crews of 80 or more for plundering expeditions.