Category: Background

Early modern currency was fiendishly complicated by modern standards. Today, there are, of course, multiple currencies—the American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealand dollar, the[…]

(This post is a continuation of Early Modern Currency – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]

The city of Salé was a famous corsair capital during the seventeenth century. It was (and still is) actually composed[…]

(This post is a continuation of Salé, the Turbulent City – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s[…]

A little distance eastwards, across the Zuiderzee from Amsterdam, Holland, is the town of Lelystad, where you’ll find Batavialand—a maritime[…]

Have you ever wondered how people built wooden sailing ships in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? The process seems, on[…]

(This post is a continuation of Shipbuilding in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries – Part 1. If you haven’t done[…]

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a time of violent conflict, both on land and at sea. They were also[…]

From midway through the sixteenth century until the early nineteenth, tens of thousands of people were taken captive by Barbary[…]

(This post is a continuation of The Algiers Slave Market: Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]