THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS
Barbary corsairs weren’t just pirates. They were part of a larger enterprise. There was a religious element to that enterprise:[…]
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Author: Adam Nichols
I'm an associate professor with the University of Maryland, in the U.S. I spent twenty years teaching for the University of Maryland’s European division, in England, Scotland, Norway, Iceland, and Germany, and downrange on military installations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Afghanistan. I've also lived and worked in Australia, China, and Canada. I presently live in the U.S.
CAPTIVE ICELANDERS IN ALGIERS
It’s been two weeks since I last posted anything in this blog. My apologies. I’ve been overwhelmed with last-minute work[…]
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THE ART OF SHOOTING GREAT ORDINANCE
The term “great ordinance” was used throughout the seventeenth (and the late sixteenth and early eighteenth) centuries to mean “cannon”[…]
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THE BARBARY CORSAIR RAID ON THE FAROE ISLANDS
In the early 1600s, Barbary corsairs were on a role—as the saying goes. From Europeans, they had learned how to[…]
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CORSAIR CAPTAINS OPERATING OUT OF ALGIERS IN 1625-26
In 1612, the republic of the Netherlands negotiated a treaty with the Ottoman Sultan that guaranteed trade privileges for Dutch[…]
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THE ECONOMICS OF THE BARBARY CORSAIR ENTERPRISE
In Algiers in the seventeenth century, piracy was big business. Algerian corsairs brought back enormous amounts of booty and hundreds[…]
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DATES AND DATING: JULIAN AND GREGORIAN CALENDARS
When you’re dealing with events that took place four or five hundred years ago, the exact dates when those events[…]
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CIVITATES ORBIS TERRARUM
Something a little different this week… Living in the twenty-first century as we do, with access to Google Earth, Google[…]
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THE COSTS OF OUTFITTING A SHIP FOR A PIRATE CRUISE
Have you ever wondered how much it cost to outfit a ship for a pirate cruise in the seventeenth century?[…]
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SHIPBUILDING IN THE SIXTEENTH & SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES – PART 2
(This post is a continuation of Shipbuilding in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries – Part 1. If you haven’t done[…]
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