Dr. Virginia Lunsford is an associate professor of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, specializing in maritime and European history. She holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from Harvard University and is the author of Piracy and Privateering in the Golden Age Netherlands (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and is currently at work on Dead Men Tell No Tales: A Cultural History of Piracy in the Modern Age, under contract with Routledge.