Book description
From the coast of Southern Europe to Morocco and the Ottoman states
of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli, Christian and Muslim seafarers met in
bustling ports to swap religions, to battle and to trade goods and
sales - raiding as far as Ireland and Iceland in search of their human
currency. Studying the origins of these men, their culture and
practices, Adrian Tinniswood expertly recreates the twilight world of
the corsairs and uncovers a truly remarkable clash of civilisations
Drawing on a wealth of material, from furious royal proclamations to
the private letters of pirates and their victims, as well as recent
Islamic accounts, Pirates of Barbary provides a new
perspectives of the corsairs and a fascinating insight into what it
meant to sacrifice all you have for a life so violent, so uncertain
and so alien that it sets you apart from the rest of mankind.
Adrian Tinniswood is a historian and educationalist. He lectures
regularly in Britain and the US, and was for many years consultant to
the National Trust on heritage education. He is the author of eleven
books of social and architectural history including
His Invention So Fertile
, his acclaimed biography of Sir Christopher Wren. His most recent book,
The Verneys
, was shortlisted for the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.
