Oates for Tanger
Wed, 8 Oct 2003
Captives
When I rather lightly called this weblog Oates for Tanger I was picking up on a passing reference in Pepys diary. Of Tanger, or of why Pepys should be trying to ship oats there, I in fact knew little or nothing. It seems that this is not entirely suprising as the whole episode was something of a fiasco from a british point of view and didn't fit in at all well with the picture of the british empire commonly dispensed to schoolboys (at least to this one).
I was fascinated then to happen on Linda Colleys book "Captives, Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850" the first third of which is entirely devoted to the British colony in Tangiers taken as an illuminating illustration of the relations between Britain and the north african offshoots of the Ottoman Empire in particular and the wests relations with islam in general. Topical and highly recommended
Posted at 20:45 #
