In 2011, a young idealist named Ross Ulbricht launched a website called Silk Road. It was an Amazon for drugs, hidden in the dark web and powered by a new, untraceable currency called Bitcoin. Ulbricht believed he was creating a libertarian utopia, a free market beyond the reach of the state. "The Pirate Roberts" charts the rise and fall of the world's most notorious online marketplace.Operating under the pseudonym "Dread Pirate Roberts," Ulbricht grew his startup into a multimillion-dollar empire. But as the site grew, so did the violence. The book details how the philosophical idealist...