Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689

Matar examines the influence of Mediterranean piracy and diplomacy on early modern British history and identity. Drawing on published and unpublished literary, commercial, and epistolary sources, he situates British maritime activity and national politics, especially in relation to the Civil War, within the international context of Anglo-Magharibi encounters. Before there was the British encounter with America, there was the much more complex and destabilizing encounter with Islam in North Africa.