Psychology:No pirate's life for me

My family and I, accompanied by a few pirates, I mean college students, spent last week bobbing in the turquoise water of the Caribbean for summer vacation. It still amazes me that if you can scavenge the airfare, you can go almost anywhere in the world and stay for about as much as it costs to visit our very own Ocean City.

It was fortunate for me that prior to the trip I picked up a book, "The Republic of Pirates" by Colin Woodard, which was left in my office by accident. Purely through chance, I found that many of the events described in the well-researched book actually took place on the very same powder-white sand...