Book description
This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched
from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of
North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own
governments, and forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few
lived to tell the tale.
Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas
Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known
chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of
Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous
scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his
personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of
he imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime.
Gripping, immaculately researched, and brilliantly realised, WHITE
GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all
the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.
Giles Milton is a writer and historian. He is the bestselling author
of
Nathaniel's Nutmeg
,
Big Chief Elizabeth
,
The Riddle and the Knight
,
White Gold
,
Samurai William
,
Paradise Lost
and, most recently,
Wolfram
. He has also written two novels and two children's books, one of them
illustrated by his wife Alexandra. He lives in South London.
