Angus Konstam (born 2 January 1960) is a Scottish writer of popular history. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised on the Orkney Islands, he has written more than a hundred books on maritime history, naval history, historical atlases, with a special focus on the history of piracy.[1]
Early life
Although born in Aberdeen, Scotland, he was raised in the Orkney Islands.[2][3][4] In 1978, after leaving Kirkwall Grammar School at the age of 18 he left to join the Royal Navy.[2][3] After initial officer training at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and undergoing further naval training at sea, he went on to study history at Aberdeen University.[2][5] During this time he was attached to the Aberdeen University Royal Naval Unit, and its tender, HMS Thornham. After receiving an MA degree, he returned to active service with the Royal Navy, during which time he visited many places that would later be written about in his books, including the Caribbean.[2] He also gained useful knowledge of military service, customs, seamanship and navigation during this time.[2] After leaving the service in 1983 he studied for a master's degree at the University of St Andrews.[2][3][5] During this time he explored the new field of maritime archaeology and wrote his thesis on early naval artillery.[2] Two decades later this formed the basis for Sovereigns of the Sea, his history of Renaissance warships.[2][3]
Career
United Kingdom
He left the navy in 1983, and the following year he began a Master of Letters in Maritime Studies at the University of St Andrews, a course which combined history with maritime archaeology.[2] After completing his Masters thesis on Renaissance Naval Artillery, he found a job in 1985 as a supervisor on an excavation in the River Thames near the Tower of London, paid for by the Royal Armouries.[2] While he was working in the Royal Armouries, The Tower and the Kremlin decided to swap exhibits – a "Treasures of the Tower" being shown in Moscow while "Treasures of the Kremlin" came to London.[2] At the same time the curators of both museums were encouraged to exchange information, and to examine each other's collections.[2] This ended up with Konstam studying the 18th century Russian military.[2] A mutual colleague introduced him to a historian working for Osprey Publishing, who turned out to want someone to write a book about Peter the Great's Army.[2] The result was two small (15,000-word) books which first appeared in 1993 – the first easily accessible account of the foundation of the Russian army to appear in English.[2][6]
United States
Konstam moved to Key West, Florida in 1995 and became the Chief Curator in the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum.[1][4] Mel Fisher was a treasure hunter who found the wreck of the Spanish treasure galleon Nuestra Señora de Atocha off the Florida Keys.[7] One of his jobs during this time was to create traveling exhibits which toured the United States.[2] During the research for a pirate exhibition, he became increasingly interested in the subject of 18th century piracy.[2] He spent six years in Key West and wrote several more books, there, including The History of Pirates (2002).[3] As he gained more information through his research, he produced Piracy: The Complete History (2008), and then, to reach a wider audience, The World Atlas of Pirates (2009). In 2019 he published The Pirate World, an adaptation of his 2009 work for the same publisher. Konstam also published a biography of the pirate Blackbeard.
Present
In early 2001 he returned to the United Kingdom, and after living in London and then Edinburgh, he returned to Orkney in 2019. He now resides in Herston in South Ronaldsay.[2][8] Konstam continues to research and write about naval and maritime history. Since 2001 he has written extensively on a number of maritime subjects. He currently has over 120 books in print,[9] Konstam is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society [FrHistS]. He served a three-year term as the Chair of The Society of Authors in Scotland and has also served on the board of Publishing Scotland, as well as on other heritage-related committees.[1] In addition, Konstam has also been a "talking head" on many cable TV and radio shows, and makes frequent appearances at book festivals and history events.[5][10]
