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(More customer reviews)Early in the 1800's the United States was paying tribute to the distant Barbary States, a series of City-States along the thin North African shore. For 200 years European states had paid tribute to Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers, for so long a time it had almost become an economic necessity.
Late in the eighteenth century, after the Revolutionary War, the United States shot ahead as the world's leading maritime carrier, participating in the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic trade. With no Navy and with the parental surveillance formerly exercised by Great Britain now missing, US shipping was an easy target for these indolent powers.
Crying "Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute," the United States sent a small fleet of ships to defend their interests. Despite colossal blunders, Navy ineptitude and dogged determination on the part of a few, the fledgling new nation prevails over the Barbary Pirates, dismantling this system of tribute that had been in place for two centuries. These events mark the establishment of the US Navy, the first foreign war fought by the US and the emergence of the US as a power upon the world stage.
This is THE definitive work on the Barbary Wars but Glenn Tucker's writing style belongs to a different age.
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