Presents a history of the epic battles, the indomitable ships, and the men--from extraordinary leaders to seductive rogues--who established Athens' supremacy, taking readers on a tour of the far-flung expeditions and detailing the legacy of a forgotten maritime empire.

"Lords of the Sea revises our understanding of the epochal political, economic, and cultural transformations of Japan's late medieval period (1300-1600) by shifting the conventional land-based analytical framework to one centered on the perspectives of seafarers usually dismissed as 'pirates'"--Provided by publisher.

The escalation of piracy in the waters east and south of Somalia has led commentators to call the area the new Barbary, but the Somali pirates cannot compare to the three hundred years of terror supplied by the Barbary corsairs in the Mediterranean and beyond. From 1500 to 1800, Muslim pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa captured and enslaved more than a million Christians. Lords of the Sea relates the history of these pirates, examining their dramatic impact as the maritime vanguard of the Ottoman Empire in the early 1500s through their breaking from Ottoman control in the early seventeenth century. Alan Jamieson explores how the corsairs rose to the apogee of their powers during this period, extending their activities from the Mediterranean into the Atlantic and venturing as far as England, Ireland, and Iceland. Serving as a vital component of the main Ottoman fleet, the Barbary pirates also conducted independent raids of Christian ships and territory. While their activities declined after 1700, Jamieson reveals that it was only in the early nineteenth century that Europe and the United States finally curtailed the Barbary menace, a fight that culminated in the French conquest of Algiers in 1830. A welcome addition to military history, Lords of the Sea is an engrossing tale of exploration, slavery, and conquest.

European traders and soldiers established a foothold on Timor in the course of the seventeenth century, motivated by the quest for the commercially vital sandalwood and the intense competition between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Lords of the Land, Lords of the Sea focuses on two centuries of contacts between the indigenous polities on Timor and the early colonials, and covers the period 1600-1800. In contrast with most previous studies, the book treats Timor as a historical region in its own right, using a wide array of Dutch, Portuguese and other original sources, which are compared with the comprehensive corpus of oral tradition recorded on the island. From this rich material, a lively picture emerges of life and death in early Timorese society, the forms of trade, slavery, warfare, alliances, social life, and so forth. The investigation demonstrates that the European groups, although having a role as ordering political forces, were only part of the political landscape of Timor. They relied on alliances where the distinction between ally and vassal was moot, and led to frequent conflicts and uprisings. During a slow and complicated process, the often turbulent political conditions involving Europeans, Eurasians, and Timorese polities, paved the way for the later division of Timor into two spheres of roughly equal size.

The epic true story of Themistocles and the Battle of Salamis, and a rousing history of the world's first dominant navy and the towering empire it built The Athenian Navy was one of the finest fighting forces in the history of the world. It engineered a civilization, empowered the world's first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on a voyage of discovery that altered the course of history. With Lords of the Sea, renowned archaeologist John R. Hale presents, for the first time, the definitive history of the epic battles, the fearsome ships, and the men-from extraordinary leaders to seductive rogues-that established Athens's supremacy. With a scholar's insight and a storyteller's flair, Hale takes us on an unforgettable voyage with these heroes, their turbulent careers, and far-flung expeditions, bringing back to light a forgotten maritime empire and its majestic legacy.