Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
5068719 Explorations in Economic History 2015 18 Pages PDF
Abstract

This paper uses data on more than 4000 captives ransomed from the Barbary corsairs to track the military power of the Ottoman Empire's most powerful North African regency over time. Results suggest that as the seventeenth century advanced, Algerian-based corsairs found it increasingly difficult to capture “hard” targets. These results do not appear to be driven by changes in ransoming preferences or by other unobserved factors and provide insights into both the timing and reasons behind the military decline of the Western Islamic World.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities History
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