73132X1 Stanford University Press, Palo Alto: 2011. 408 pages. Hardcover with dustjacket. Brand new book. Captives and Corsairs uncovers a forgotten story in the history of relations between the West and Islam: three centuries of Muslim corsair raids on French ships and shores and the resulting captivity of tens of thousands of French subjects and citizens in North Africa. Through an analysis of archival materials, writings, and images produced by contemporaries, the book fundamentally revises our picture of France's emergence as a nation and a colonial power, presenting the Mediterranean as an essential vantage point for studying the rise of France. It reveals how efforts to liberate slaves from North Africa shaped France's perceptions of the Muslim world and of their own "Frenchness". From around 1550 to 1830, freeing these captives evolved from an expression of Christian charity to a method of state building and, eventually, to a rationale for imperial expansion. Captives and Corsairs thus advances new arguments about the fluid nature of slavery and firmly links captive redemption to state formationÑand in turn to the still vital ideology of liberatory conquest. Gillian Weiss is Associate Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. "In a remarkably erudite and lucid narrative, Gillian Weiss tells the unjustly neglected story of Mediterranean slavery, highlighting the interchange between French captives in North Africa and Islamic captives in France. Captives and Corsairs is a fascinating chronicle of changing cultural perceptions that will be warmly welcomed by all historians of modern Europe, all scholars of slavery, and all thinking individuals concerned with West/East and Christian/Islamic relations."ÑColin Jones, Queen Mary, University of London "Captives and Corsairs not only enriches our understanding of early modern slavery, it also demonstrates that interactions with North Africa were central to the construction of French identity, state-building, and visions of hierarchy long before France actually colonized the region in the nineteenth century. Weiss's book offers a powerful example of transnational history in dialogue with more traditional historical questions about state, religion, and geopolitics."ÑSuzanne Desan, University of Wisconsin "Gillian Weiss has given us a broad and definitive book on the presence of French slaves in North Africa and efforts at their redemption in the 17th and 18th century. With fresh vision, she shows us how the struggle against Mediterranean piracy strengthened the French monarchical state, reshaped the legitimization for slavery in a 'racialized' direction, and even provided the arguments for the later French colonization of Algeria. Full of verve and rich detail, Captives and Corsairs is history-writing at its best."ÑNatalie Zemon Davis, $65.00USD
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