A01=Manuel Barcia
abolitionism
anti-slavery campaigns
Author_Manuel Barcia
Britain
Category=NHB
Category=NHTM
colonial expansion
commercial ambitions
economic interests
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
exploitation
France
global politics
humanitarian narratives
inter-imperial relations
international trade
legal definitions of piracy
Malaysia
Netherlands
Ottoman Empire
Portugal
Spain
technological advancements
Western imperialism
Product details
- ISBN 9780300269451
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 10 Mar 2026
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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This first truly global history of the suppression of piracy links maritime raiding to empire building in the nineteenth century
In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, imperial powers around the world came into direct confrontation with local resistance in the form of maritime raiding. From the Atlantic basin to the western Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa, and Southeast Asia and China, imperial powers claimed that progress was being held back by the barbarity and greed of pirates, who repeatedly attacked imperial vessels. The suppression of piracy, justified under the banner of spreading civilization and free trade and abolishing slavery and the slave trade, provided both western and non-western powers with a back door for territorial expansion and the enforcement of imperialist agendas.
Historian Manuel Barcia tells the story of these conflicts, showing how imperialist powers frequently used anti–maritime raiding efforts as excuses to cement western supremacy in various parts of the world, while simultaneously resorting to violent means that were indistinguishable from the methods of those they accused of being pirates.
In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, imperial powers around the world came into direct confrontation with local resistance in the form of maritime raiding. From the Atlantic basin to the western Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and the east coast of Africa, and Southeast Asia and China, imperial powers claimed that progress was being held back by the barbarity and greed of pirates, who repeatedly attacked imperial vessels. The suppression of piracy, justified under the banner of spreading civilization and free trade and abolishing slavery and the slave trade, provided both western and non-western powers with a back door for territorial expansion and the enforcement of imperialist agendas.
Historian Manuel Barcia tells the story of these conflicts, showing how imperialist powers frequently used anti–maritime raiding efforts as excuses to cement western supremacy in various parts of the world, while simultaneously resorting to violent means that were indistinguishable from the methods of those they accused of being pirates.
Manuel Barcia is pro-vice-chancellor for global engagement at the University of Bath. He has published five books, the most recent of which, The Yellow Demon of Fever, won the Paul E. Lovejoy Prize.
