33-2315  DT197  94-5447 CIP 
Allison, Robert J.  The crescent obscured: the United States and the Muslim world, 1776-1815.  Oxford, 1995.  266p index afp ISBN 0-19-508612-0, $35.00. Reviewed in 1995dec CHOICE.

Allison chronicles the new American nation’s contacts with the Muslim world, portrayed through the Barbary states of North Africa: Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. His study begins with Algerian seizures of American ships in 1785 and ends essentially with the conclusion of the war with Tripoli in 1805. Documenting the enslavement and fate of Americans held or shipwrecked in the Barbary states, and the vacillation of American leadership, both executive and congressional, in attempting to free them, Allison delves into an emerging American view of the Muslim world through a mixture of capitivity narratives, biographies, poems, fiction, histories, and diplomatic and consular records. Readers will find both flaws and strengths. The arrangement of chapters is confusing, material discussed is repeated later, and the naval and diplomatic story is incomplete. The book purports to cover the years through 1815, but the 1815 naval mission of Commodores Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge to the Barbary Coast goes unmentioned. On the other hand, the American view of Muslim leaders and religion, Muslim slavery, treatment of women, and attitude toward sex are ably investigated through contemporary sources. Will complement but not supplant older studies of diplomatic, commercial, and naval relations with the Barbary States. Upper-division undergraduates and above. — C. W. Haury, Piedmont Virginia Community College 

Bandits at sea: a pirates reader, ed. by C.R. Pennell.  New York University, 2001.  351p index afp ISBN 0-8147-6679-X $65.00; ISBN 0-8147-6678-1  pbk, $24.95. Reviewed in 2002feb CHOICE.
39-3520  G535  00-12702 CIP 

Editor Pennell has gathered 16 selected readings from books and scholarly articles on the subject of piracy the world over. This broad coverage ranges from such topics as the black man in “the trade” to women in piracy. Some of the better-known excerpts are, for example, Marcus Rediker’s Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1987), Dian Murray’s Pirates of The South China Coast, 1790-1810 (CH, Jul’88), and Catherine Bracewell’s The Uskoks of Senj (1992). Each footnoted article carries with it a splendid bibliography, but the book would have benefited from some maps, and the few illustrations are pedestrian. All in all, a very scholarly work, suggested for upper-division humanities students and graduate students in history, sociology, and perhaps geography. — B. H. Groene, Southeastern Louisiana University

Bradford, Alfred S.  Flying the black flag: a brief history of piracy.  Praeger, 2007.  210p bibl index afp ISBN 0-275-97781-1 , $49.95; ISBN 9780275977818, $49.95. Reviewed in 2008mar CHOICE.
45-3920  G535  2007-3036 CIP
 
At the center of the book’s jacket illustration, a bearded, bloodthirsty pirate captain brandishes a cutlass with which he is about to split an embattled naval officer’s skull. Desperate men shooting, slashing, stabbing, and throttling one another surround the captain and the officer. The dead and dying litter the deck. Prospective readers might assume that this scene, when considered with the black flag that is part of the title, indicates the book is about piracy from the early 1600s to about 1725. If so, they would be dead wrong! Only 39 pages are devoted to a period that begins with the rise of the buccaneers and concludes with the hanging of Captain Kidd. The remaining three-fourths of the work, some 150 pages, covers a range from seaborne marauders of ancient times to modern raiders in the Malacca Straits. Cramming several thousand years of worldwide piracy into so slim a volume is done largely by skimming information from familiar secondary sources. Still, there is a good deal of material on Greek and Roman piracy that will probably be new to all but the most dedicated piracy buffs. Summing Up: Recommended. General collections and public libraries. — B. R. Burg, Arizona State University 

De Souza, Philip.  Piracy in the Graeco-Roman world.  Cambridge, 1999.  276p bibl indexes ISBN 0-521-48137-6, $59.95. Reviewed in 2000jul CHOICE.
37-6403  DE61   MARC 

De Souza’s study is a textual examination of piracy in the Graeco-Roman world from approximately 800 to 700 CE. It covers a broad spectrum of topics, including the evolution of the terms “pirate” and “piracy” in their cultural and historical contexts, the conditions that made it possible for pirates to flourish in the Mediterranean, the complex relationship between seaborne plundering and warfare, and the effects of piracy on peoples who suffered its depredations. The book is a revisionist analysis of the abundant material on piracy in classical literature, challenging the interpretations of Jules M. Sestier (La Piraterie dans l’antiquité, Paris, 1880), Henry A. Ormerod (Piracy in the Ancient World, Liverpool, 1924), and Erich Ziebarth (Beitrage zur Geschichte des Seeraubs und Seehandels in alter Griechenland, Hamburg, 1929), all of whom considered piracy in the ancient world to be an unchanging phenomenon similar in general form to that practiced centuries later in the Caribbean, on the Spanish Main, or in the Indian Ocean. This meticulous work of scholarship will not be superseded for many decades. It is well written, persuasively argued, organized neatly along chronological lines, and contains maps that are clear and easy to read. Upper-division undergraduates and above. — B. R. Burg, Arizona State University 

Guttridge, Leonard F.  Our country, right or wrong: the life of Stephen Decatur, the U.S. Navy’s most illustrious commander.  Forge, 2006.  304p index ISBN 0-7653-0701-4, $24.95; ISBN 9780765307019, $24.95. Reviewed in 2007sep CHOICE.
45-0451  E353  2006-46455 CIP

Since 9/11, Americans have struggled to find meaning in the terrorist attacks and subsequent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Although some have pointed to the Barbary Wars (Tripolitan War, 1801-05, and Algerine War 1815-16) as evidence of longstanding religious hostility, Guttridge correctly acknowledges that the US fought these wars not against religious “terrorists,” but instead against heathen pirates, making Stephen Decatur an American hero in the process. In mid February 1804, Decatur torched the captured US frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor, and a few months later captured a Tripolitan gunboat after a desperate hand-to-hand battle. During the War of 1812, Decatur captured the first British warship of the conflict, but later surrendered the frigate President off New York. Shortly after the war, Decatur led a US squadron to the Mediterranean to deal again with the Barbary pirates, using gunboat diplomacy to bring Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli to terms. Throughout Decatur’s life, he exhibited bravado and flair as an officer, and his premature death in 1820 elevated him almost immediately to iconic status. This well-written biography reveals not only the illustrious hero, but also the private person. Summing Up: Recommended. General collections and up. — G. A. Smith, Texas Christian University 

Lambert, Frank.  The Barbary wars: American independence in the Atlantic world.  Hill and Wang, 2005.  228p index afp ISBN 0-8090-9533-5, $24.00. Reviewed in 2006apr CHOICE.
43-4863  E335  2004-19361 CIP 

Lambert (Purdue Univ.) rejects the view that the Barbary Wars were a conflict between Islam and Christianity or a campaign against terrorism. Instead, he argues that the wars “were primarily about trade,” and that in fighting Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, and Morocco, Americans sought to extend to the Atlantic World the “principle of equality and reciprocity” for which they had fought the Revolution and adopted the Constitution. US leaders sought at the same time, but with little success, to obtain recognition of free trade principles from European powers. Lambert’s political-economic approach contrasts with that of Robert J. Allison’s The Crescent Obscured (CH, Dec’95, 33-2315), which focuses on US perceptions of Islam and the impact of Christians being held captive in North Africa on US attitudes toward domestic slavery; with Joshua E. London’s Victory in Tripoli (2005), which depicts the Barbary Corsairs as terrorists; and with Glenn Tucker’s Dawn like Thunder (1963), which recounts operations in the Barbary Wars in the context of the institutional development of the US Navy and Marine Corps. While containing little new information, Lambert’s book is well written, its thesis well argued, and its perspective both fresh and important. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — J. C. Bradford, Texas A&M University 

Lane, Kris E.  Pillaging the empire: piracy in the Americas, 1500-1750.  M.E. Sharpe, 1998.  237p bibl index afp ISBN 0-7656-0256-3, $58.95; ISBN 0-7656-0257-1  pbk, $19.95. Reviewed in 1999jan CHOICE.
36-2891  E18  97-32619 CIP 

Lane’s book is intended as a supplement on piracy for world history sections or similarly oriented courses. It is written almost entirely from English-language sources and deals largely with the depredations carried out against the Spanish empire by French, Dutch, and English corsairs. Occasional examinations of the policies adopted by Spanish authorities in response to buccaneering excursions are included, but most of the text is a pirate narrative–a veritable catalog of ferocious captains, dastardly deeds, ships captured or lost, looted treasure, and the like. As befits a work designed for undergraduates, there are numerous illustrations. Half-a-dozen boxes are set apart from the text to present special topics selected to stoke reader interest. Still, judicious editing would have made the book more appealing. Some students, for example, will undoubtedly feel patronized by glossary entries that explain that the Dutch term “zee-rover” means “sea rover” in English, or that “Arrr!” is a pirate expression of contempt. Similarly, other students are certain to be confused by the author’s characterization of several pirates as “journalists” rather than diarists. — B. R. Burg, Arizona State University 

Leiner, Frederick C.  The end of Barbary terror: America’s 1815 war against the pirates of North Africa.  Oxford, 2006.  239p bibl index afp ISBN 0-19-518994-9, $28.00. Reviewed in 2007apr CHOICE.
44-4647  E365  2005-26644 CIP 

Stephen Decatur was lionized by Americans during his brief but spectacular naval career. Unfortunately, he is most often remembered today only for two things, the burning of the USS Philadelphia in 1804 after it had been captured by a Tripolitanian corsair, and for his famous but often misquoted toast to “our country, right or wrong.” His lesser-known and rarely chronicled 1815 attack on Algiers and his subsequent successes in forcing the city’s ruler to end state-sponsored piracy and release enslaved Christians were events far more significant in moral, diplomatic, and political terms than either the assault at Tripoli or his dining-table rhetoric. This study examines all aspects of Decatur’s victory at Algiers–the planning, the details of the engagement, and the aftermath. The expedition was a smallish affair, and the author is forced to flesh out his narrative with excursions into several tangential topics, such as the internecine battles of US naval officers to secure high-visibility commands and British punitive attacks on Algiers in 1816. Still, despite occasional digressions, this is a first-rate, carefully researched, scholarly account of a genuinely significant event in US naval history. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students/faculty. — B. R. Burg, Arizona State University 

Parish, James Robert.  Pirates and seafaring swashbucklers on the Hollywood screen: plots, critiques, casts and credits for 137 theatrical and made-for-television releases.  McFarland, 1995.  228p index afp ISBN 0-89950-935-5, $39.95. Reviewed in 1995sep CHOICE.
33-0046  PN1995  94-24197 CIP 

Parish lists the credits, casts, plots, and critiques for 137 theatrical and made-for-television releases, 1914-92, dealing with pirates and seafaring swashbucklers. A chronology is given at the beginning of the book. The entries are in alphabetical order and provide lengthy credits for everything from producer to set designer, including names of both actors and characters. A detailed synopsis of the plot covers every main action in the film. An added feature for each entry consists of excerpts of critiques from periodicals and newspapers, such as Variety and the New York Times. Nearly all the entries list both favorable and unfavorable critiques. An index of proper names and film titles appears at the end of the book. One slight flaw is the inclusion of films that offer only a subplot about pirates (e.g., The Princess Bride, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Show of Shows, and Fast Company). This detracts from the other listings. Overall, the book is well done and fills a gap. Recommended for undergraduate libraries. — J. M. Langlois, Missouri Western State College Library 

Parker, Richard B.  Uncle Sam in Barbary: a diplomatic history.  University Press of Florida, 2004.  285p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8130-2696-2, $59.95. Reviewed in 2004dec CHOICE.
42-2408  E335  2003-66593 CIP 

This story of 30 years of problems between the US and North African Muslim rulers, extending from 1785 to 1815, may have special relevance in light of contemporary world events. Parker, a former ambassador to several North African countries, has crafted a detailed recounting that fills gaps in Robert Allison’s The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815 (CH, Dec’95). Using the diplomatic record, personal papers, and memoirs, Parker recounts US dealings with Algiers and, to a lesser degree, Tunis and Tripoli. While there is exquisite detail, readers may lament Parker’s failure to state more forcefully the most salient lessons–that the US paid ransoms, used bribery, gave tribute, allowed hostages to be held for considerable periods of time, employed force, did not know the language and, very importantly, misread the culture, religion, and social climate in Algiers enough to compound the problem in several instances. The author does, however, observe that the US even then was perplexed with powers that do not act by Western norms. A postscript and 13 appendixes provide interesting details and specifics on relations with the Barbary powers and the Americans who participated. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. — C. W. Haury, Piedmont Virginia Community College 
 
Piracy and diplomacy in seventeenth-century North Africa: the journal of Thomas Baker, English consul in Tripoli, 1677-1685, ed. with introd. by C.R. Pennell.  Fairleigh Dickinson, 1989. (Dist. by Associated University Presses),  261p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8386-3302-1, $39.50. Reviewed in 1989dec CHOICE.
27-2231  DT231  86-45999 CIP 

A good introduction (74 pages) offers the reader a detailed explanation of North African economics and diplomacy in the 17th century. This introduction sets the stage for the journal of Thomas Baker, written in Tripoli and covering the period 1677-85. Comment on the intense competition between England and France for economic power in North Africa is interwoven with description of the activities of the Barbary pirates operating in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. An interesting section of the book deals with the renegades, Christians who had either been captured and forced to become Muslims or had converted voluntarily. There is a good explanation of how Ottoman Turkish power slowly waned in North Africa. The second part of the book is Baker’s diary. This diary records minute details of the ships, cargoes, and sailors moving in and out of Tripoli. Trade in slaves was brisk. The preservation of early English spelling makes the diary difficult reading. Not a book likely to be used by undergraduates, but a good graduate library serving specialists on North Africa should make this work available. — D. L. Ling, Marietta College 

Rediker, Marcus.  Villains of all nations: Atlantic pirates in the golden age.  Beacon Press, 2004.  240p index afp ISBN 0-8070-5024-5, $24.00. Reviewed in 2004nov CHOICE.
42-1714  F106  2003-21508 CIP

Scholar of Atlantic history Rediker (Univ. of Pittsburgh) has published a number of books and articles involving piracy, most notably Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (CH, Jan’88). This is his first book devoted solely to pirates themselves, however, examining particularly the era from 1716-26. Considering Rediker’s past insights, this is a surprisingly standard collection of pirate lore, drawing heavily on Charles Johnson’s 1724 General History of the Pyrates; explaining oft-examined pirate customs such as ship’s articles; and recounting the exploits of famous pirates. Rediker’s class-focused approach sheds light on the material, but he makes relatively few new assertions; rather, this book summarizes his understanding of piracy by drawing on his published previously work. It also highlights the continued relevance of pirate history. The author’s examination of terrorist methods used by pirates and the authorities they rebelled against invites comparison to today’s conflicts. While examining pirates’ alternative social order, Rediker still conveys the romantic appeal of piracy: “Out of this complex array of forces would climb the pirate, with a dagger between his teeth.” This informed, enthusiastic approach is an excellent introduction to pirates and a worthwhile reexamination for pirate devotees. Summing Up: Recommended. Public libraries, undergraduate collections, and above. — W. L. Svitavsky, Rollins College 

Rodriguez, Jarbel.  Captives & their saviors in the medieval crown of Aragon.  Catholic University of America, 2007.  225p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8132-1475-0, $64.95; ISBN 9780813214757, $64.95. Reviewed in 2008jan CHOICE.
45-2839  HT1315  2006-6396 CIP

Captivity and efforts to ransom and release captives constituted essential challenges in medieval Iberian society, both in conflict with Islamic forces and in extensive trade networks throughout the Mediterranean. Informed by archival resources of the period and by studies of modern prisoner of war behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder, Rodriguez (San Francisco State Univ.) focuses on the Crown of Aragon in the 14th and 15th centuries to delineate the world of captives and the individuals and corporate groups dedicated to rescuing them. By the 12th century, Aragon had the urban, religious, and military institutions available for raising ransom funds and effecting prisoner exchange, in addition to what families and friends could achieve on their own. Significant resources were raised for redemption, fueled by the constant threat of piracy and raiding, knowledge of the living conditions under which captives lived, and fears that captives would convert to Islam if unredeemed. However, fewer than ten percent of Christian captives gained release in any given year, a figure small enough to confound the extensive efforts dedicated to ransoming. Rodriguez concludes by speculating on the difficulties faced by those fortunate enough to return home. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. — L. C. Attreed, College of the Holy Cross 

Toll, Ian W.  Six frigates: the epic history of the founding of the U.S. Navy.  W.W. Norton, 2006.  560p bibl index ISBN 0-393-05847-6, $27.95; ISBN 9780393058475, $27.95. Reviewed in 2007sep CHOICE.
45-0469  E182  2006-20769 CIP 

This well-written narrative recounts the early history of the US Navy and places it in the political, diplomatic, economic, and emotional setting of the young republic. Focusing on the establishment of the Navy in 1794, the construction of the Navy’s first six frigates (including the Constitution and Constellation, which are still afloat), the Barbary and French Quasi-Wars, the Chesapeake-Leopard Incident, and the War of 1812, Toll shows how the new service developed and gained the respect of Great Britain and other powers. Of particular interest are the portraits Toll limns of naval and political leaders of the time. Based heavily on recent scholarship, this work replaces William M. Fowler’s Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815 (CH, Dec’84) and Leonard F. Guttridge and Jay D. Smith’s The Commodores (CH, Nov’69) as the standard popular history of the establishment and operations of the first quarter century of the US Navy, which a century and a half later eclipsed all others. With a style reminiscent of David McCullough’s, this work, remarkable for a first-time author, should find a large audience. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. — J. C. Bradford, Texas A&M University 

X marks the spot: the archaeology of piracy, ed. by Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen.  University Press of Florida, 2006.  339p bibl index afp ISBN 0-8130-2875-2, $59.95. Reviewed in 2007apr CHOICE.
44-4598  CC77  2005-45656 MARC 

Concerned with the most romantic and popular of maritime subcultures, pirates, this work provides the background to the myths and realities of piracy from the Caribbean and the Atlantic seaboard to the Indian Ocean and beyond. The material is diverse, including descriptive material, interpretation, and insightful discussion. Of particular interest is the historical and archaeological information on a number of pirate ships, such as the Speaker, Ranger, Fiery Dragon, Adventure Galley, Whydah Galley, and Queen Anne’s Revenge, as well as pirates such as Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Bartholomew Roberts, and William Kidd. The work is refreshing because it provides many of the unspectacular aspects of piracy alongside legendary figures and events of the era. Additionally, there is a great deal of skepticism built into the work–good to see in a serious scholarly treatment of the subject. In particular, the various comments and interpretations by many of the authors about how archaeologists may deduce pirate material culture in the archaeological record is a major contribution to the subject. Scattered throughout the book are images of exceptional quality, including archaeological site plans, historical imagery, and material culture photographs. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. — N. T. Richards, East Carolina University

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