White Gold: The Forgotten Story of North Africa's European Slaves - Couverture rigide

Milton, Giles

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0340794690 ISBN 13 : 9780340794692

Editeur : Sceptre, 2004

Synopsis

White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-two of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors - fanatical Islamic slave traders - had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salé in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco, who bragged that his white slaves enabled him to hold all of Europe to ransom. The sultan was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale and grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. Thomas Pellow was selected to be a personal slave of the sultan, and he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of the imperial Moroccan court, as well as experience daily terror. For twenty-three years, he would dream of his home, his family and freedom. He was one of the fortunate few who survived to tell his tale.

WHITE GOLD is an extraordinary and shocking story. Drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves, and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them, it reveals a disturbing and forgotten chapter of history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.

Revue de presse :

Praise for Giles Milton's previous books:
'It's almost impossible to summarise [NATHANIEL'S NUTMEG], from which marvellous, vivid stories spill out like swagsack booty'

(Guardian on NATHANIEL's NUTMEG)

A magnificent piece of popular history (Independent on Sunday on NATHANIEL's NUTMEG)

The thoroughness and intelligence of his research underpins the lively confidence with which he deploys it (The Times Literary Supplement on NATHANIEL's NUTME)

Giles Milton's narrative races along as he stitches together a story of heroism, sacrifice and misplaced zeal, painstakingly researched from contemporary writing and records (Observer on BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH)

Giles Milton can take an event from history and make it come alive. He has a genius for lively prose, and an appreciation for historical credibility. He has crafted an inspiration for those of us who believe that history can be exciting and entertaining (The Times on SAMURAI WILLIAM)

An exceptionally pungent, amusing and accessible historical account ... Milton's research has been prodigious and it yields an entertaining, richly informative look at the past (The New York Times on BIG CHIEF ELIZABETH)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Sceptre
• Date d'édition: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0340794690
• ISBN 13: 9780340794692
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 336