Hidden in history lies the world of piracy, too far away to be fully reached, understood or told. They are distant stories that contain horrible facts and impossible realities. It's no secret that piracy has found a home in Western pop culture; the romance of mystery and drama seems to follow any pirate image. Historically speaking, some scholars have however rejected this romantic vision, for every academic voice there is a Jack Sparrow or a Long John Silver. Conflict surrounds the truth about piracy as historians continue to view piracy in light of historical contexts while social culture is based on the dramatized romantic vision. For this reason, only when these studies and stories are brought together does a new vision develop. By analyzing texts, such as the primary source The Buccaneers of America by Exquemelin, historian Marcus Rediker's Villains of All Nations, and Robert Louis Stevenson's famous Treasure Island, romance and piracy are brought together and surprisingly developed by historians and fiction writers. Treasure Island is one of the first texts to expose modern culture to the cinematic world of piracy. This text, full of heroic themes and tantalizing twists, represents a prime example of romance in the world of pirates. As the reader flips through the pages he comes across a short section entitled "To the Hesitant Buyer", it is under this title that the author describes Treasure Island as "all the old love story, told exactly the old way" . This text is an epic story of treasure, mystery, death and good victory. The plot itself centers on narrator Jim Hawkins, a boy who leaves his mother to find buried treasure, the existence of which is discovered through mysterious... middle of paper... compared to Exquemelin's first-hand account. Rediker a scholar uses pirates as a symbol of a revolutionary cause not yet born in history; its romantic interpretation. It is through these different viewpoints that the romance of piracy is defined, protected, and used to further push the study of history. Perhaps pirates will always remain in academia and the social world as symbols to represent the possibility of life and the freedom desired by all. For this reason, pirates will remain romantic figures loved by all for many decades to come. Bibliography Exquemelin, Alexander O. The Buccaneers of America. Translated by Alexis Brown. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, INC., 1969. Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: The Pirates of the Atlantic in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.Stevenson, Robert L. Treasure Island. New York City: Signet Classics, 1965.