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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Barbary Entanglements: Realizing American Independence on the World Stage

Barbary Entanglements: Realizing American Independence on the World Stage

Chamberlin, John M.

Paperback

Series: The Revolutionary Age

19th Century United States HistoryGeneral World History

ISBN10: 081395410X
ISBN13: 9780813954103
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: Dec 1 2025
Pages: 270
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.61 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
How the United States' confrontation with North African raiders established its legitimacy on the world stage

For the fledgling United States of America, the first major foray onto the international stage came off the North African coast in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. When Barbary corsairs preyed on American merchant ships, their young government and new navy were compelled to step in. Barbary Entanglements shows how interactions with the Barbary states--the independent empire of Morocco and the semi-autonomous Ottoman regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli--over the issue of privateering transcended economic grievances and allowed American consuls and servicemen to demonstrate the viability and reliability of their new nation within the European diplomatic system. More than simply protecting trade, US intervention against Barbary corsairs between 1784 and 1825 aimed to establish American sovereignty and demonstrate treaty-worthiness to their European sister nations.

In this deeply researched and insightful study, John Chamberlin not only offers a granular account of how the Barbary system of corsairing and ransom-slavery worked over four decades. He also highlights nascent federal authorities' coordinating diplomatic efforts with lesser European powers such as Sweden and Denmark to gain legitimacy, and he makes unprecedented use of Arabic language sources to reframe what we know about the development of early American foreign policy. In the process, he offers a dramatic retelling of how the United States first announced itself as a force to be reckoned with on the international scene.

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