[BOOK REVIEW] Dawn Like Thunder.

Captain K

Captain K

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By Glenn Tucker... Now I haven´t read it yet, it´s in the mail.
It´s about the US going to war against the barbary states. USA was at the time rougly 30 years old, when it - unlike european nations - said no to intimmidation and blackmail from the muslim barbary states in north Africa.
and just simply went to town with them after having their ships attacked and their crews enslaved, and so on. I believe the marine corps was created during this period. I´m looking forward to learn more about this piece of history. In my opinion it is kinda obscured by other somewhat greater US historic events, such as the civil war.
I´m sure the book will have a happy ending.
 
There's a brilliant book by Giles Milton called White Gold, about the white slave trade (the Barbary Pirates raided continental Europe and UK for valuable white slaves). It tells the story of Thomas Pellow, a young English fisherman who gets taken to be a slave to INSANE WARLORD Mulay Ismay in Morocco (I mean, this guy has 1200+ children, was horribly murderous...building a giant city... and prone to bumping off his male kids when they started to look at the throne...).

Pellow is smart and gets taken on by Ismay as a sort of senior minister and eventually escapes. It's a mind-boggling story. Ismay is totally psychotic, so being his No.1 troubleshooter guy is not necessarily the great career opportunity it might be.

The end of the book does talk about the US and British fleets taking out the Barbary pirates. Incidentally the British Admiral was a descendent of Pellow! Revenge, a dish best eaten cold.
 
I own another book about the subject matter. It´s the biografi of an icelandic priest taken prisoner by north africans.
Growing up I was always under the impression that pirates only took gold and silver. A kind of romantacising description. How wrong I was.

Fact of the matter is that pirates not only killed men and ravaged women and children, but also took people as slaves. Iceland was hit particulary hard in this raid, that also affected the Faroe Islands, as the book describes.

And to add insult to injury, the pirates set houses on fire, stole small rowing boats, ploughs, shovels, rakes. Basically everything that could fetch a price no matter how trivial, they took, including fishing nets. Leaving the people that had avoided death or capture no means to support themselves, and leaving them to starvation.

I have heard of the book white gold. Never gotten around to purchasing it.
 
Wow! I had no idea they went as far North as that! White Gold does mention the brutality and sadism of the pirates. I can see how a tough life in the Faroes would be almost impossible if you lost all your possessions, house, fishing boat etc.
 
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