English Accounts of Captivity in North Africa and the Middle East: 1577-1625

Between 1577 and 1625, ten Englishmen wrote or dictated accounts about their captivity among the Muslims. After examining similar accounts of captivity by continental writers, Fernand Braudel argued that European governments encouraged the publication of such accounts for an ideological purpose: to alienate readers from Islam and Muslims. A close reading of the English accounts, however, shows that there was a more personal and selfish goal for the publication of these accounts than the polemical and the ideological.