DON QUIXOTE – THE CAPTIVE’S TALE – PART 11
(This post is a continuation of Don Quixote – The Captive’s Tale – Parts 1 through 10. If you haven’t[…]
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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.
DON QUIXOTE – THE CAPTIVE’S TALE – PART 12
(This post is a continuation of Don Quixote – The Captive’s Tale – Parts 1 through 11. If you haven’t[…]
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EXCERPTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALBERT RUYL – PART 1
During the early decades of the seventeenth century, Morocco was convulsed by a violent civil war. In 1603, the Sa’adi[…]
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EXCERPTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALBERT RUYL – PART 2
Albert Ruyl, remember, had come from the Netherlands to Morocco in 1622 at the request of Moulay Zayday, the Moroccan[…]
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NOTHING WAS SIMPLE
The relationship between the North African Barbary corsair states and European countries was, of course, an adversarial one. The borders[…]
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THE PROBLEM WITH RANSOMS: THE TANGLED WEB OF POLITICS AND INFLUENCE
Ransoming captives from North Africa wasn’t a simple process. The logistics could be fiendishly complicated and difficult, and, as we[…]
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THE PROBLEM WITH RANSOMS: THE CORRUPTING POWER OF LARGE SUMS OF READY CASH
Being captured by Barbary corsairs and sold into slavery like a beast of burden was a devastatingly traumatic experience. Everything[…]
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THE PLAGUE IN NORTH AFRICA
Since this is the last blog post of 2020, and since, thanks to COVID-19, this year has been a sort[…]
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A DESCRIPTION OF ALGIERS
In 1835, the Reverend Michael Russell published a book on North Africa titled History and Present Condition of the Barbary[…]
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THE REDEMPTIVE ORDERS – PART 1
From the mid sixteen through to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, the Barbary corsair enterprise was huge. Corsairs ranged[…]
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