On Corsairs of Malta and Barbary

Most of this book is really quite good, but Earle’s argument is less so. In short, he argues that both Christian (primarily out of Malta, but also out of other powers like Spain) and Muslim corsairs (commissioned by the Beys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli) were hired by their potentates to maintain a holy war against the opposite religion. Often, the “holy war” was not necessarily viewed as such by the individual privateers, but the leaders insisted on it as a way to weaken opponents in peacetime (privateers were only free to attack other ships during war). More often, corsairs offered a considerable amount of economic power, especially through enslaving those on opposing ships. Because state-sanctioned piracy was permitted during peacetime, Earle argues that it functioned as an “eternal war.”

Earle’s chief contribution is combatting the stereotype of all Mediterranean pirates being Muslim or, at least, coming from the Muslim portions of the Mediterranean. Instead, the Knights of St. John on Malta supported a massive amount of privateering, as did other Christian states in the Western Mediterranean. This does not eliminate the damage caused by North African corsairs and pirates, but it does offer some logical sense to it.