This global history of anti-piracy efforts links the struggle against maritime predation to the expansion of empires in the nineteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, imperial powers across the globe were confronting local resistance in the form of piracy. From the Atlantic, the western Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the East African coast to Southeast Asia and China, these powers claimed that progress was being stifled by the barbarism and greed of pirates who repeatedly attacked imperial vessels. Efforts to combat piracyjustified in the name of spreading civilization and free trade, as well as abolishing slavery and the slave tradeprovided both Western and non-Western powers with a pretext for territorial expansion and the pursuit of imperialist objectives. Historian Manuel Barcia chronicles these conflicts, demonstrating how imperial powers frequently used the fight against piracy as a pretext to consolidate Western dominance in various parts of the world, while simultaneously employing violent methods that differed little from those of the very individuals they branded as pirates.
Author
Barcia, Manuel
Title
Pirate Imperialism
Details
English text, occasional black-and-white illustrations. 284 pages.
State
new
Subtitle
Trade, Abolition, and Global Suppression of Maritime Raiding, 1825-1870
Yale University Press 47 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP Vereinigtes Königreich
