Research Catalog

Title

Pirate utopias : Moorish corsairs & European Renegadoes / Peter Lamborn Wilson.

Author

Wilson, Peter Lamborn.

Publication

Brooklyn : Autonomedia, 1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

208 p. : ill., maps; 18 cm.

Summary

"From the 16th to the 19th century, Moslem corsairs from the Barbary Coast ravaged European shipping and enslaved many thousands of unlucky captives. During this period, however, thousands of Europeans also converted to Islam and joined the pirate 'holy war.' Were these men (and women) the scum of the sea, apostates, traitors--'renegades'? Or did they abandon and betray Christendom as a praxis of social resistance? [The author] focuses on the corsairs' most impressive accomplishment, the independent Pirate Republic of Saľ, in Morocco, in the 17th century. Corsairs, sufis, pederasts, 'irresistable' Moorish women, slaves, adventurers, Irish rebels, heretical Jews, British spies, and radical working class heroes all populate a book which intends to entertain and to make a point about insurrectionary communities."--From publisher.

Subject

• Botswana > Description and travel
• Pirates > Africa, North

Bibliography (note)

• Bibliography: p. 205-208.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Pirate and mermaid -- A Christian turn'd Turk -- Democracy by assassination -- A company of rogues -- An alabaster palace in Tunisia -- The Moorish Republic of Saľ -- Murad Reis and the sack of Baltimore -- The corsair's calendar -- Pirate utopias.

ISBN

1570270244

OCLC

34480565

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library