Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689

By Nabil Matar

2005

First Published

3.85

Average Rating

256

Number of Pages

7H49M

Audio Length

"This important and fascinating study of early modern England’s relationship to North Africa by the foremost expert on the topic is magisterial in its reach and groundbreaking in the implications it holds for seventeenth-century English culture and political history."—Mihoko Suzuki, University of Miami "Following an incisive re-appraisal of “The Moor on the Elizabethan Stage”–vital reading for anyone interested in the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – Professor Matar offers a groundbreaking study of Britain's response to Barbary in matters of state and stage from 1589-1689. This is an exceptional final volume to an inestimable trilogy."—Patrick Spottiswoode, Shakespeare's Globe "Unique for its command of English and Islamic primary sources and for its grasp of literary, cultural, and political history, 'Britain and Barbary, 1589 - 1689' marks another indispensable contribution by Nabil Matar to our understanding of the relationship between Britain and Islam in the early modern period. Written with unusual clarity, Matar's book organizes a wealth of fascinating detail within a narrative that informs our understanding and challenges preconceptions. While firmly grounded in the literature and history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the book has much to offer any reader who seeks to develop a better understanding of the multi-faceted history of Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa."—Jack D'Amico, Canisius College 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 Drawing on published and unpublished literary, commercial, and epistolary sources, he situates British maritime activity and national politics, especially in relation to the Civil War, within the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. Focusing on specific case studies, Matar examines the impact of early visits of Moroccan officials on English playwrights such as Peele, Shakespeare, and Heywood; the captivity of thousands of British sailors in North Africa and its domestic consequences in the first women’s protest movement in English history; the captivity of British women in Barbary, especially the English sultana Balqees; the absorption of thousands of "moors" into the British slave trade; and the aftermath of the colonization and desertion of Tangier. Matar shows that when Barbary was militarily and diplomatically powerful, its relations with and impact on Britain were extensive. Nabil Matar is professor of English and chair of the Department of Humanities and Communication at the Florida Institute of Technology. This book is the third and final installment in his trilogy that includes Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 and Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery.

Avg Rating

3.85

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

31%

4 STARS

38%

3 STARS

23%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Nabil Matar

Author · 6 books

Nabil Matar studied English Literature at the American University of Beirut where he received his B.A. and M.A. In 1976, he completed his Ph.D. at Cambridge University on the poetry of Thomas Traherne. He taught at Jordan University and the American University of Beirut, and received postdoctoral grants from the British Council (Clare Hall, Cambridge University) and from Fulbright (Harvard Divinity School). In 1986, Dr. Matar moved to the United States and started teaching in the Humanities Department at Florida Institute of Technology. In 1997, he became the Department Head and served until 2007 when he moved to the English Department at the University of Minnesota. He is Presidential Professor in the President’s Interdisciplinary Initiative on Arts and Humanities and teaches in the departments of English and History, and in the Religious Studies Program. Dr. Matar’s research in the past two decades has focused on relations between early modern Britain, Western Europe, and the Islamic Mediterranean. He is author of numerous articles, chapters in books and encyclopedias, and the trilogy: Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 (Cambridge UP, 1998), Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia UP, 1999), and Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689 (UP of Florida, 2005). He wrote the introduction to Piracy, Slavery and Redemption (Columbia UP, 2001) and began a second trilogy on Arabs and Europeans in the early modern world: In the Lands of the Christians. (Routledge, 2003), Europe through Arab Eyes, 1578-1727 (Columbia UP, 2009). He is currently working on the third installment, "Arabs and Europeans, 1517-1798." With Professor Gerald MacLean, he published Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713 (Oxford UP, 2011). With Professor Judy Hayden, he edited a collection of essays on travel to the Holy Land in the early modern period (in press, Brill, 2012). His forthcoming publication is a study and an annotated edition of "Henry Stubbe and the Prophet Muhammad: The Originall & Progress of Mahometanism" (Columbia UP, 2012/13), He is completing work on "Names and Numbers: British Captives in North Africa, 1578-1727." In recognition of his "pioneering scholarship on the relationship between Islamic civilisation and early modern Europe," Dr. Matar was given the Building Bridges award at the University of Cambridge (28 March 2012).