Crimes Against Feeling: Piracy, Sympathy, and Ocean Politics in Antebe

Crimes Against Feeling: Piracy, Sympathy, and Ocean Politics in Antebellum America, Volume 1, explores the intersection of law and literature in nineteenth-century America. Mark B. Kelley examines how the charge of piracy was applied to diverse figures, including foreign leaders, enslavers, and abolitionists. This legal history study demonstrates that piracy was often defined by emotional judgment rather than political ideology. By analyzing legal materials and sentimental fiction, the text shows how concepts of sympathy and domestic vulnerability shaped American maritime law.

This work in history and criticism investigates how emotional frameworks helped manage transnational disorder and oceanic violence. Crimes Against Feeling: Piracy, Sympathy, and Ocean Politics in Antebellum America, Volume 1, connects legal debates over sovereignty and slavery to the era's popular literary movements. As a scholarly resource for law and literature, it reveals how the figure of the pirate helped define American notions of gender, family, and national identity during a period of intense social change.