After receiving an MA degree, he returned to active service with the Royal Navy, during which time he visited many places that would later be written about in his books, including the Caribbean.

[2] After completing his Masters thesis on Renaissance Naval Artillery, he found a job in 1985 as a supervisor on an excavation in the River Thames near the Tower of London, paid for by the Royal Armouries.

[2] A mutual colleague introduced him to a historian working for Osprey Publishing, who turned out to want someone to write a book about Peter the Great's Army.

[2][6] Konstam moved to Key West, Florida in 1995 and became the Chief Curator in the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum.

[3] As he gained more information through his research, he produced Piracy: The Complete History (2008), and then, to reach a wider audience, The World Atlas of Pirates (2009).

[1] In addition, Konstam has also been a "talking head" on many cable TV and radio shows, and makes frequent appearances at book festivals and history events.