Based on his close reading of over a score of ex-slave accounts, Bernard Capp explores in British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs both the “lives that British slaves endured in captivity” in Barbary and the attempts to liberate them (9). Choosing to describe British captives as “slaves” is deliberate: Capp rejects using only the descriptor “captives” when it comes to those enslaved by the Barbary corsairs as reflecting an Atlantic-centric view that chattel slavery is the archetypal form compared to which no other form warrants the name “slavery.” It is also true that for most Stuart Britons, the term “slavery” recalled not the African slave trade but their compatriots captive in Barbary. Capp also rejects subsuming the “slave-account” genre, which provides much but not all of his material, under the conceptual fetters of “Orientalism, imperialism, and even capitalism” in which such accounts are viewed as near and mere fictions depicting “superior Western, Christian” slaves who are contrasted with their “cruel, tyrannical, and barbaric” eastern slavers (4–5).

The subject warrants, and receives, serious scholarly treatment and for good historical reasons. In defending its importance, Capp is not making some culture war point, and he does the requisite throat-clearing about European participation in corsair-led slavery and the greater brutality of the Atlantic trade. Rather, he maintains that the topic of enslaved Britons in Barbary is a significant yet ignored element of early modern British history. Capp also stresses that he is offering a British angle on the much larger theme of slavery in the Mediterranean world—and acknowledges that the approximately 15,000 to 20,000 enslaved Britons were only a tiny percentage of the estimated one million enslaved Europeans of the period. An experienced practitioner, Capp deals with his potentially unreliable sources in a judicious manner. Captive narratives vary as much as they share details, and often include discussion of more benign elements of Barbary slavery. This variety, Capp suggests, means we can rely upon them, with due caution, as historical sources. It is still the case, however, that much is lost to us. Captive accounts tell us little about the captive's day to day life, compared to the “trauma of capture” and the “humiliation of the auction” (49). Similarly, we only really know something of those who escaped or were ransomed, and not about the many more who died in captivity.

All this comes across in eight short but richly detailed and tightly structured chapters. Capp starts by ably outlining the context of slavery in Barbary. The next four chapters detail British experiences of the ordeal of initial capture, the workings of the slave market and the types of life endured while in captivity. He discusses the varying roles of religion from inner belief informing enduring hope through to apostasy, both calculated and forced, and notes that conversion was more common amongst younger captives. Capp recounts some tales of escape, which was always hazardous and especially so from Barbary itself, and overall “successful escapes were extremely rare” (105). Many fascinating conclusions emerge. Capp claims that there was “in fact no ‘typical’ experience of captivity in Barbary,” though there are identifiable patterns of outcome (39). Those of higher social and economic status received better treatment than those lower down the ladder. Enslaved Britons held by private owners often received better treatment than those captive in bagnios. The “volatility” of the Barbary regimes, in which “society [was] brutalized from top to bottom,” meant a captive's life could change quite dramatically quite suddenly (52, 56). Especially insightful is the discussion of how captives’ identities were “fluid, hybrid, and multilayered,” and could be, as Capp nicely puts it, “swayed by the tides of circumstance and interest” (87, 88).

The final three chapters contribute to our understanding of how the corsairs’ activities were responded to, particularly the practice of ransom slavery, and eventually curtailed. For much of the early Stuart period, England was defenseless against a powerful North African enemy, meaning families of enslaved Britons had to rely on private and local efforts to raise funds. Paying ransoms was often criticized by merchants, who viewed the practice as “misguided and counter-productive” and for whom, as Capp dryly notes, “profit outweighed philanthropy” (111, 112). In the early Stuart period, the weak English state often vacillated on attempts to liberate Britons abroad, which prompted angry petitioning by the womenfolk of captives. When the state did first get involved, it was in the form of orchestrating charitable action, rather than paying for redemptions itself or forcibly freeing captives. Capp's reconstruction of how redemptions were actually paid, once the money was raised, is impressive, as he confidently explains the workings of a complicated “hybrid system” involving many actors and vulnerable to myriad things going wrong (137). Captives’ chances to regain their freedom improved as the century wore on, especially once England emerged as a naval power that could back up demands with the threat of force. Still, “conflicts with European rivals always took priority,” and only once England had become a dominant naval force in the final decades of the seventeenth century did the side-issue of curbing the corsairs and freeing British slaves become a feasible goal (153).

Aside from the curtailing of corsair activity due to English then British seafaring might, Capp notes in his conclusion how the “sufferings of European slaves in Barbary” was rarely used “as an argument against the African slave trade” or against slavery per se (177). He reiterates that, in terms of the experience of enslaved Britons, “there was no ‘typical’ experience of enslavement in Barbary, and the evidence reveals enormous diversity” (181). The prose is clear and readable, and the subject matter as well as Capp's keen eye for detail makes for stimulating reading. Certainly, the subject of enslaved Christians has been written on in terms of Europe more broadly, but British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs contributes something worthwhile by providing a British perspective. It complements titles by Linda Colley (Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600–1850 [2002]), Roger C. Davis (Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters [2003]), and Nabil Matar (British Captives from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1563–1760 [2014]), though Capp gently and respectfully pushes back against Matar’s more benign analysis of Barbary piracy on a number of topics (for example, 82, 125).