The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480-1580 (review)

The decision to translate Jacques Heers's book on the Barbary Corsairs, originally published in 2001, was probably motivated by the lack of a good recent scholarly study accessible to historians whose main language is English. Apart from a children's book, the only other recent publication on this topic in English is a facsimile reprint in 1984 of Stanley Lane-Poole's book first published in 1896. There are rather more titles in Italian and French, including several on the Barbarossa brothers, but the list is not long and includes items like The Freebooter's bride; or, The black pirate of the Mediterranean : including the mystery of the Morescoes ; a romance, interspersed with historical allusions to the reign of Charles V, by Bernard William Bayle, published in 1829.

The author had, therefore, a real opportunity to cover an evident "gap" in recent literature on a subject which has some romantic appeal even to the nonspecialist. The book is well produced with attractive motifs of vessels between sections, some well-chosen illustrations, a chronology and brief notes and bibliography but it is curiously unsatisfactory and even misleading at times. Some of this is perhaps due to the attempt to produce a coherent account of the very complex politics of the day between the various states in the Mediterranean in relatively few pages in the three opening chapters. It is very easy, however, to get lost in the headlong description of events with no clear overall picture emerging, and even no clear definition of a corsair. The account given of the role of the Janissaries in the chapter on the Africa of the Corsairs does not make clear enough the nature of this corps, at least in its early days, as the dedicated personal troops of the Sultan, forcibly recruited by the devshirmeh from the Christian Balkans . Many of the operational questions regarding the way corsair expeditions were mounted and carried out, the number of voyages per season, the way the galleys were fought, are either ignored or not fully answered. The chapter on slavery, a topic on which Heers has also written elsewhere, is perhaps the strongest, making plain the extent to which this institution was a "normal" part of life in the region at the time. The issue of the impact of the activities of the Barbary corsairs on both life and trade in coastal regions of the Mediterranean is again well handled. The conclusion, however, reverts to the political themes of the opening chapters, leaving us with the final thought that the great extent of his empire was a "severe strain on the resources of Charles V." A clearer focus on the corsairs themselves and their activities would have added greatly to the value of this book. As it is, the military historian in particular will find this an opportunity missed.