Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean: The Grand Period of the Moslem Corsairs

In the turbulent waters of the 16th-century Mediterranean, two brothers transformed from exiled Moroccan warriors into the most feared maritime powers in Christendom. Uruj and Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa began as small-time corsairs operating from the coasts of North Africa, but their audacious attacks on Christian shipping and their eventual capture of fortified ports like Bougie soon caught the attention of sultans and emperors alike. Currey, writing with the vivid enthusiasm of an Edwardian adventurer-historian, traces their remarkable ascent: how the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain supplied the Barbary Corsairs with both motive and manpower, how personal grievances became holy war, and how a band of pirates ultimately became the sovereign rulers of Algiers. This is not dry academic history but a rousing narrative of shifting alliances, thundering naval battles, and a world where the line between privateer and sovereign, piracy and politics, dissolved entirely. For anyone who has ever wondered what real maritime predation looked like before it became mere legend, Sea-Wolves delivers.