Piracy and the English Government 1616–1642

Piracy and the English Government 1616–1642
Author: David D. Hebb
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351911082

Piracy and the English Government, 1616-1642, explodes the myth that England was ’a nation of pirates’, arguing that the English people were far more often victims of piracy. The costs to the economy and society resulting from piracy, which are critically examined here for the first time, reveal that not only were hundreds of English ships lost to pirates in the period, but an astonishing number of men, women and children (approximately 8,000) were carried away to Barbary by pirates and sold into slavery. The response of the government to these losses, which posed significant political problems for the early Stuart government, are explored and related to broader political concerns and influences.

Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption

Piracy, Slavery, and Redemption
Author: Daniel J. Vitkus
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780231119054

At last available in a modern, annotated edition, these tales describe combat at sea, extraordinary escapes, and religious conversion, but they also illustrate the power, prosperity, and piety of Muslims in the early modern Mediterranean.

Law and Colonial Cultures

Law and Colonial Cultures
Author: Lauren Benton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2002
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521009263

Argues that institutions and culture serve as important elements of international legal order.

English Colonial Texts on Tangier, 1661-1684

English Colonial Texts on Tangier, 1661-1684
Author: Karim Bejjit
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317143132

Recent years have seen growing academic interest in England’s colonial venture in Tangier in the late seventeenth century, and the crucial role it played not only in influencing contemporary domestic politics in England, but also in shaping new imperial policies in the Mediterranean. This critical edition presents a remarkable collection of 18 Restoration pamphlets dealing with the English occupation of Tangier. In an extensive original introduction, Karim Bejjit narrates the various stages of the colonial venture in Tangier, and critically analyses both the British historiography and current scholarship on the subject. He provides an alternative reading of the Tangier episode, emphasising the Moroccan point of view and the significance of the local political agency. At the same time, as the author argues in the introduction, so intertwined were the affairs of the colony and the home country in 1680 that the political crisis which was then unfolding in England cannot be fully explained without acknowledging the impact of dramatic developments in Tangier. Despite their generic diversity, as Bejjit shows, the pamphlets in this collection share a common interest in the affairs of Tangier, and reflect the changing circumstances and shifting politics at home and in the colony. In bringing together these long forgotten narratives, this edition revives critical interest in the colonial adventure in Tangier which had considerable influence on the political scene in England. Read collectively, the texts offer a genuine glimpse into the colonial scene and the interplay of forces which governed English presence in Tangier.

Mimesis and Empire

Mimesis and Empire
Author: Barbara Fuchs
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2001
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780521543507

As powerful, pointed imitation, cultural mimesis can effect inclusion in a polity, threaten state legitimacy, or undo the originality upon which such legitimacy is based. In Mimesis and Empire , first published in 2001, Barbara Fuchs explores the intricate dynamics of imitation and contradistinction among early modern European powers in literary and historiographical texts from sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spain, Italy, England and the New World. The book considers a broad sweep of material, including European representations of New World subjects and of Islam, both portrayed as 'other' in contemporary texts. It supplements the transatlantic perspective on early modern imperialism with an awareness of the situation in the Mediterranean and considers problems of reading and literary transmission; imperial ideology and colonial identities; counterfeits and forgery; and piracy.

British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750

British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750
Author: Bernard Capp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2022-04-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192671804

British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs is the first comprehensive study of the thousands of Britons captured and enslaved in North Africa in the early modern period, an issue of intense contemporary concern but almost wholly overlooked in modern histories of Britain. The study charts the course of victims' lives from capture to eventual liberation, death in Barbary, or, for a lucky few, escape. After sketching the outlines of Barbary's government and society, and the world of the corsairs, it describes the trauma of the slave-market, the lives of galley-slaves and labourers, and the fate of female captives. Most captives clung on to their Christian faith, but a significant minority apostatized and accepted Islam. For them, and for Britons who joined the corsairs voluntarily, identity became fluid and multi-layered. Bernard Capp also explores in depth how ransoms were raised by private and public initiatives, and how redemptions were organised by merchants, consuls, and other intermediaries. With most families too poor to raise any ransom, the state came under intense pressure to intervene. From the mid-seventeenth century, the navy played a significant role in 'gunboat diplomacy' that eventually helped end the corsair threat. The Barbary corsairs posed a challenge to most European powers, and the study places the British story within the wider context of Mediterranean slavery, which saw Moors and Christians as both captors and captives.

Early Modern Catholics, Royalists, and Cosmopolitans

Early Modern Catholics, Royalists, and Cosmopolitans
Author: Brian C. Lockey
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317147103

Early Modern Catholics, Royalists, and Cosmopolitans considers how the marginalized perspective of 16th-century English Catholic exiles and 17th-century English royalist exiles helped to generate a form of cosmopolitanism that was rooted in contemporary religious and national identities but also transcended those identities. Author Brian C. Lockey argues that English discourses of nationhood were in conversation with two opposing 'cosmopolitan' perspectives, one that sought to cultivate and sustain the emerging English nationalism and imperialism and another that challenged English nationhood from the perspective of those Englishmen who viewed the kingdom as one province within the larger transnational Christian commonwealth. Lockey illustrates how the latter cosmopolitan perspective, produced within two communities of exiled English subjects, separated in time by half a century, influenced fiction writers such as Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Anthony Munday, Sir John Harington, John Milton, and Aphra Behn. Ultimately, he shows that early modern cosmopolitans critiqued the emerging discourse of English nationhood from a traditional religious and political perspective, even as their writings eventually gave rise to later secular Enlightenment forms of cosmopolitanism.

Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713

Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713
Author: Gerald MacLean
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2011-05-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199203180

Explores the interactions between Britain and the Islamic world from 1558 to 1713, showing how much scholars, diplomats, traders, captives, travellers, clerics, and chroniclers were involved in developing and describing those interactions.

The Atlantic in Global History

The Atlantic in Global History
Author: Jorge CaÏizares-Esguerra
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315508079

This reader, composed of original essays by leading authors, expands the category of the Atlantic chronologically, spatially, and methodologically. It firmly places the Atlantic within global history and the coverage expands into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The essays present events that formed the nations and cultures of the Atlantic region and show their global roots and how they intertwine with non-Atlantic communities of the world.