Under the black flag by David Cordingly
Published 1996 · 296 pages · 110,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · History, Nonfiction
How hard is Under the black flag to read?
Under the black flag scores 24 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 33 out of 100
- Cordingly writes plain, clear modern prose and explains nautical terms such as sloops, privateers and letters of marque as they arise. It is far closer to Atomic Habits than to Moby-Dick in vocabulary demands.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Sentences are direct and moderately long, built for general readers. Quoted period documents add occasional archaic phrasing, but the narrative voice stays easy to follow.
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- The book rests on concrete ships, trials, wages and punishments, with the pirate myth as its only mild abstraction. Arguments come through specific cases such as Blackbeard and Bonny.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Many names, dates and ports appear across a few decades and several oceans. Anecdotes and illustrations keep the pace comfortable, a little denser than a typical popular history.
How Under the black flag is regarded
Under the black flag holds a literary regard score of 44 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.