Did British, French and Russian gunboats pacify the notoriously corsair-infested waters of the Eastern Mediterranean? This book charts the changing rates and nature of piracy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth century. Using Ottoman, Greek and other archival sources, it shows that far from ending with the introduction European powers to the region, piracy continued unabated. The book shows that political reforms and changes in the regional economy caused by the accelerated integration of the Mediterranean into the expanding global economy during the third quarter of the century played a large role in ongoing piracy. It also considers imperial power struggles, ecological phenomena, shifting maritime trade routes, revisions in international maritime law, and changes in the regional and world economy to explain the fluctuations in violence at sea.

A part of the insurrectionary wave of the 1820s, the Greek Revolution remains a neglected episode in the revolutionary history of the period. The contributions included in this volume present the most recent research concerning the social, political and cultural history of this major event. Bringing together specialists in social, intellectual and cultural history, the volume adopts a broader temporal and spatial perspective than most existing analyses. Juxtaposing the views from without and within the Ottoman Empire, the authors reconsider the dialectics of social transformation and revolution and overcome simplistic dichotomies between structural continuities and conjectural ruptures, international context and internal conflicts, social and political aspects, and central state and local power-holders, putting the Greek Revolution squarely back on the agenda of Marxist and revolutionary historiography. Contributors are: Zacharias Antonakis, Dimitris Bacharas, Athanasios Barlagiannis, Simos Bozikis, Aliki Fakoura, Şükrü Ilicak, Elias Kolovos, Phokion Kotzageorgis, Dimitris Kousouris, Dimitris Papastamatiou, Nikos Rotzokos, Mohammet Shariat-Panahi, Panagiotis Stathis, Panagiotis Sotiris, Dionysis Tzakis, and Eleftheria Zei.

Menacing Tides shows how piracy disappeared from the Mediterranean through European security cooperation, enabling imperial expansion.

Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 explores the Black Sea region as an encounter zone of cultures, legal regimes, religions, and enslavement practices. The topics discussed in the chapters include Byzantine slavery, late medieval slave trade patterns, slavery in Christian societies, Tatar and cossack raids, the position of Circassians in the slave trade, and comparisons with the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This volume aims to stimulate a broader discussion on the patterns of unfreedom in the Black Sea area and to draw attention to the importance of this region in the broader debates on global slavery. Contributors are: Viorel Achim, Michel Balard, Hannah Barker, Andrzej Gliwa, Colin Heywood, Sergei Pavlovich Karpov, Mikhail Kizilov, Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Maryna Kravets, Natalia Królikowska-Jedlińska, Sandra Origone, Victor Ostapchuk, Daphne Penna, Felicia Roșu, and Ehud R. Toledano.

This volume presents Greek Maritime History to a wider audience and unravels the historical trajectory of a maritime nation par excellence in the Eastern Mediterranean: the rise of the Greek merchant fleet and its transformation from a peripheral to an international carrier.

Lucas Haasis found a time capsule: A complete mercantile letter archive of the merchant Nicolaus Gottlieb Luetkens who lived in 18th century Hamburg. Luetkens travelled France between 1743-1745 in order to become a successful wholesale merchant. He succeeded in this undertaking via both shrewd business practice and proficient skills in the practice of letter writing. Based on this unique discovery, in this microhistorical study Lucas Haasis examines the crucial steps and activities of a mercantile establishment phase, the typical letter practices of Early Modern merchants, and the practical principles of persuasion leading to success in the 18th century.