HIST3426: Piracy in the Mediterranean: The World of Merchants and Pirates

This course will use the vehicle of piracy and privateering in the Mediterranean world to explore issues of cross-cultural interaction, global connections, and identity from earliest times when people took to the sea to the Middle Ages through the early modern era, 500-1800. Wherever there was trade, wherever there was movement on the seas, there was piracy. Recent scholarship on the Mediterranean has focused on connectivities, micro-environments, the uniqueness of islands, and various climatic spheres in a geographic tradition that follows the path-breaking work of Fernand Braudel. This course will consider the urban and rural dimensions of the Mediterranean region as they relate to the history of merchants and pirates. Finally, the political and military aspects of Mediterranean history will be examined. There was a continuum from piracy to privateering to war. Students should gain a deeper understanding of a region that continues to fascinate us today.

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