En même temps, quand on voit les armures de la civilisation, on se dit que les barbares tout nus avec la bite passée à l'indigo ça a du bon

And I can't recall much about Stein's book but it had had enough of an impact on me when I read it at the library that I actually went out and bought it for myself.

For a more in depth look (sorry very French-centric) : Heath's book is excellent as a back-and-forth between the newly slavery-free Antilles colonies and the beet-producing metropole. Cheney's book is really excellent too but I'm a sucker for agrarian micro-history.

still on the production side, Jason Moore has an absolutely amazing paper on Madeira. Ecological history at its peak. Maxine Rodinson has a few cool lines on the use of sugar treats in Abbasid Baghad And, well its the opposite of sweet, but I quite liked Montanari's Amaro, un gusto Italiano

Amazing paragraph. So interesting for the roots of the ecological debates. The origins of the "War on Goats" waged by Colbert and continued from colonial Algeria to 19th-century Çukurova may be found in post-1570 Norther Italy

Wow amazing document: in 1601, the Paulini brothers sketched the impact of deforestation on the environment at large from Guidoboni, Emanuela. "Human Factors, Extreme Events and Floods in the Lower Po Plain (Northern Italy) in the 16th Century" www.researchgate.net/publication/...

crazy celebration in Algiers this weekend for the victory of the muludia football club

Spotted those beauties the other day in Paris. Several Maltese battle scenes against mostly Maghrebi corsairs. If you have a few thousand euros in your back pocket....

I've just finished @zoegriffith.bsky.social's masterful book, Egypt's Mediterranean. There's many good things to say about it but smarter people have already done so. I'd rather focus on the negative, namely: roasted scorpions were one of Egypt's main export and it only gets one mention?

Her sey kismeti

I forgot to mention three great memoires written by Europeans in the Ottoman empire

There's even a whole series about Italian revolts in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern era

Corsaires à Marseille. Onze portraits d’aventuriers des mers à la fin du Moyen Âge by Laure-Hélène Gouffran Pirates!!! Marseille!!! Pirates in Marseilles!!! And knights!!! Fuck awesome!!!

Les Almogavres. L’Expédition des Catalans en Orient by Ramon Muntaner Back in school I had really enjoyed this story of the blood-soaked adventure of the Catalan mercenaries in medieval Greece.

Tripoli. Tribulations et aventures d’un captif dans une cité corsaire by Antoine Quartier The memoires of a French monk kept in bondage in the North African port city of Tripoli.

Ma vie de brigand by Carmine Crocco The biography of the great bandit slash anti-unification partisan

Sous le burnous by Hector France A bone-shilling story about the French army campaign against the North African civilian in the closing years of the 19th century

Captifs et corsaires. L’identité française et l’esclavage en Méditerranée by Gillian Weiss Translation of an American PhD, an important external look at a crucial aspect of French history

Alvise Mocenigo. Un notable vénitien au début du XVIe siècle by Philippe Braunstein A fantastic exploration of the biography of a mid level Venetian civil servant. A true effort in favour of a history not obsessed by a few great names.

Au bout du tunnel, il y a un autre tunnel newbooksnetwork.com/staple-to-su...

correspond à une ponction fiscale de prêt de 100% du capital (réminiscente des politiques soviétiques en Ukraine dans les années 1920 et 1930, avec des conséquences souvent assez similaires).

produits algériens qui participent à la destabilisation des régions viticoles et engendre des manques à gagner fiscaux en métropole. Mais évidemment, ne considérer que les années "normales" biaise profondément les résultats. La séquestration puis la redistribution de milliers d'hectare après 1871

Pour le cas algérien, c'est difficile. En termes stricts de transferts fiscaux, en année normale, plus d'argent va du Nord au Sud que l'inverse. Même sous-administrés, les trois départements coûtent plus qu'ils ne rapportent. C'est d'autant plus vrai quand on prend en compte la concurrence des

Special mention for the magic amulettes from the Inquisition's own archives. One is forprotection and the second asks the devil to hang one guy.

from Europe, most of the story here is based on documents refering to the captivity of Muslim slaves in European ports. You get to see the record of their entries in the galleys, their employment in the cities by artisans and evidences of their daily lives.

Second, most of the pieces presented come from French museums and the rest come from a handful of Italian or Maltese collections. It gives a serious skew to the exhibition but a very interesting one. Literrary records mostly mention European captives in North Africa. But due to the pieces coming

First, while the exhibition is fairly humble in size, they manage to present virtually only pieces I had never seen before. So serious points for originality.

I was lucky enough to have the time to visit the exhibition Esclavages en Méditerranée (Slaveries in the Mediterranean) at the Arab World Institute in Paris. I gotta say, I went in a bit sceptical but I left fully impressed. It's a fantastic exhibition that's well-worth visiting: here's why...

starts killing everyone). It maybe how it was experience by many of the victims, something akin to a whole state turning maniac, but it is not the most compelling way of explaining history. Allen is probably the best example of how to efficiently explain how Moscow came to organize the Holodomor.

In honour of the Pope's visit to Algeria, here's a reminder that you should read this article that is topical in so many ways (mercenaries, blockade, Christians visiting the Muslim Maghrib....): The_Papacy and Christian Mercenaries of Thirteenth Century North Africa www.academia.edu/8603889/The_...