The notorious uprising on the Bounty has been elevated to iconic status by Hollywood, yet Richard Woodman describes it here as a mere ‘pup’ among mutinies. Captain Bligh was neither tyrant nor sadist — whereas Pigot of the Hermione was both. Woodman brings a seaman’s perspective to this compelling history, which stretches from Magellan’s handling of an uprising on his great voyage of discovery in 1519 to the ‘sordid crimes’ that mutinies had become four centuries later.