The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson PDF Author: Ólafur Egilsson
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press + ORM
ISBN: 0813228700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
A seventeenth-century minister tells his story of abduction by pirates, and a solo journey from Algiers to Copenhagen, in this remarkable historical text. In summer 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens and abducting almost four hundred people to sell into slavery in Algiers. Among those taken was Lutheran minister Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur—born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei—wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive and as a traveler across Europe as he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the Icelandic captives that remained behind. He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail―social, political, economic, religious―about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: We witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understanding of God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic text. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with that raid, this edition of The Travels includes not only Reverend Olafur’s first-person narrative but also a collection of contemporary letters describing both the events of the raid itself and the conditions under which the enslaved Icelanders lived. Also included are appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Salé in the seventeenth century, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book’s early modern European context.

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson PDF Author: Ólafur Egilsson
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press + ORM
ISBN: 0813228700
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

Get Book Here

Book Description
A seventeenth-century minister tells his story of abduction by pirates, and a solo journey from Algiers to Copenhagen, in this remarkable historical text. In summer 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland, killing dozens and abducting almost four hundred people to sell into slavery in Algiers. Among those taken was Lutheran minister Olafur Egilsson. Reverend Olafur—born in the same year as William Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei—wrote The Travels to chronicle his experiences both as a captive and as a traveler across Europe as he journeyed alone from Algiers to Copenhagen in an attempt to raise funds to ransom the Icelandic captives that remained behind. He was a keen observer, and the narrative is filled with a wealth of detail―social, political, economic, religious―about both the Maghreb and Europe. It is also a moving story on the human level: We witness a man enduring great personal tragedy and struggling to reconcile such calamity with his understanding of God. The Travels is the first-ever English translation of the Icelandic text. Until now, the corsair raid on Iceland has remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. To give a clearer sense of the extraordinary events connected with that raid, this edition of The Travels includes not only Reverend Olafur’s first-person narrative but also a collection of contemporary letters describing both the events of the raid itself and the conditions under which the enslaved Icelanders lived. Also included are appendices containing background information on the cities of Algiers and Salé in the seventeenth century, on Iceland in the seventeenth century, on the manuscripts accessed for the translation, and on the book’s early modern European context.

The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson

The Travels of Reverend Olafur Egilsson PDF Author: Ólafur Egilsson
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813228697
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The combination of Reverend Olafur's narrative, the letters, and the material in the Appendices provides a first-hand, in-depth view of early seventeenth-century Europe and the Maghreb equaled by few other works dealing with the period. We are pleased to offer it to the wider audience that an English edition allows.

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson PDF Author: Ólafur Egilsson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789979584124
Category : Africa, North
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
Diary of Icelandic Lutheran priest Ólafur Egilsson, kidnapped from Iceland by slave raiders from Algiers in 1627. Also includes maps and other letters from Icelanders who were captured in the same raid or who witnessed the event.

The Sealwoman's Gift

The Sealwoman's Gift PDF Author: Sally Magnusson
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1473638976
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HWA DEBUT CROWN | THE BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD | THE MCKITTERICK PRIZE | THE PAUL TORDAY MEMORIAL PRIZE | THE WAVERTON GOOD READ AWARD | A ZOE BALL ITV BOOK CLUB PICK 'REMARKABLE' Sarah Perry 'EXTRAORDINARILY IMMERSIVE' Guardian 'A REALLY, REALLY GOOD READ' BBC R2 Book Club' 'LYRICAL' Stylist 'POETIC' Daily Mail 1627. In a notorious historical event, pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted 400 people into slavery in Algiers. Among them a pastor, his wife, and their children. In her acclaimed debut novel Sally Magnusson imagines what history does not record: the experience of Asta, the pastor's wife, as she faces her losses with the one thing left to her - the stories from home - and forges an ambiguous bond with the man who bought her. Uplifting, moving, and sharply witty, The Sealwoman's Gift speaks across centuries and oceans about loss, love, resilience and redemption. 'Sally Magnusson has taken an amazing true event and created a brilliant first novel. It's an epic journey in every sense: although it's historical, it's incredibly relevant to our world today. We had to pick it' Zoe Ball Book Club 'Richly imagined and energetically told' Sunday Times 'The best sort of historical novel' Scotsman 'Compelling ' Good Housekeeping 'An accomplished and intelligent novel' Yrsa Sigurðardóttir, author of Why Did You Lie? 'Vivid and compelling' Adam Nichols, co-translator of The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean PDF Author: Edward Kritzler
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0767919521
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
In this lively debut work of history, Edward Kritzler tells the tale of an unlikely group of swashbuckling Jews who ransacked the high seas in the aftermath of the Spanish Inquisition. At the end of the fifteenth century, many Jews had to flee Spain and Portugal. The most adventurous among them took to the seas as freewheeling outlaws. In ships bearing names such as the Prophet Samuel, Queen Esther, and Shield of Abraham, they attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safety of Jews living in hiding. Filled with high-sea adventures–including encounters with Captain Morgan and other legendary pirates–Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean reveals a hidden chapter in Jewish history as well as the cruelty, terror, and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery.

Barbary Captives

Barbary Captives PDF Author: Mario Klarer
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231555121
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 611

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Book Description
In the early modern period, hundreds of thousands of Europeans, both male and female, were abducted by pirates, sold on the slave market, and enslaved in North Africa. Between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, pirates from Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco not only attacked sailors and merchants in the Mediterranean but also roved as far as Iceland. A substantial number of the European captives who later returned home from the Barbary Coast, as maritime North Africa was then called, wrote and published accounts of their experiences. These popular narratives greatly influenced the development of the modern novel and autobiography, and they also shaped European perceptions of slavery as well as of the Muslim world. Barbary Captives brings together a selection of early modern slave narratives in English translation for the first time. It features accounts written by men and women across three centuries and in nine different languages that recount the experience of capture and servitude in North Africa. These texts tell the stories of Christian pirates, Christian rowers on Muslim galleys, house slaves in the palaces of rulers, domestic servants, agricultural slaves, renegades, and social climbers in captivity. They also depict liberation through ransom, escape, or religious conversion. This book sheds new light on the social history of Mediterranean slavery and piracy, early modern concepts of unfree labor, and the evolution of the Barbary captivity narrative as a literary and historical genre.

The Mystery of the Ancient Cup

The Mystery of the Ancient Cup PDF Author: Peter Churan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780228862079
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
From a simple purchase of a few old pieces at a local flea market to years of extensive research into their chemistry, designs and religious significance, the author takes the reader on a journey back millennia when meteorites left an indelible impact on early civilizations. Like a treasure hunt in reverse, the reader is transported to 9,080 years ago, when a plain glass cup with a metal handle and base was made of raw materials from out of this world. The radiocarbon dating, glass chemistry, historical accounts, designs and probable travel path paint a fascinating journey from the Black Sea and throughout Europe to Canada, as well as the guardians of the ancient cup from its pagan roots through religious sects. The author, current guardian of the cup and pieces, has painstakingly researched the cup over the last seventeen years, and offers an objective historical lesson for readers to evaluate the findings on their own, and to reach their own conclusions. Could these be the Last Supper pieces?

The Glaciers of Iceland

The Glaciers of Iceland PDF Author: Helgi Björnsson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462392072
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 617

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Book Description
This book is the first comprehensive overview and evaluation of the origins, history and current size and condition of all of Iceland's major glaciers (including Vatnajökull, the largest in Europe) at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is not only illustrated with many beautiful photographs and graphs of recent statistics and scientific data, but is also a collection of historical writings and drawings from annals, sagas, folk tales, diaries, reports, stories and poems, as it presents a unique approach to the study of glaciers on an island in the North Atlantic. Balancing and comparing the world of man with the world of nature, the perceptions of art and culture with the systematic and pragmatic analyses of science, The Glaciers of Iceland present a wide spectrum of readers with a new and stimulating view of the origins, development and possible future of these massive natural phenomena, as well as the study and role of glaciology, within specific time lines and geographical locations. Icelandic glaciers the author argues could prove essential for understanding the current unsettling progress of global warming. The glaciers of Iceland, therefore, aims at presenting to a wide readership an original, historical, cultural and scientific overview of these geophysical features in Iceland while also suggesting increasingly important lessons and models for man's future interaction with the world's glaciers as a whole.

The Stolen Village

The Stolen Village PDF Author: Des Ekin
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
ISBN: 1847174310
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
In June 1631 pirates from Algiers and armed troops of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, led by the notorious pirate captain Morat Rais, stormed ashore at the little harbour village of Baltimore in West Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and bore them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates -- some would live out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while others would spend long years in the scented seclusion of the harem or within the walls of the Sultan's palace. The old city of Algiers, with its narrow streets, intense heat and lively trade, was a melting pot where the villagers would join slaves and freemen of many nationalities. Only two of them ever saw Ireland again. The Sack of Baltimore was the most devastating invasion ever mounted by Islamist forces on Ireland or England. Des Ekin's exhaustive research illuminates the political intrigues that ensured the captives were left to their fate, and provides a vivid insight into the kind of life that would have awaited the slaves amid the souks and seraglios of old Algiers. The Stolen Village is a fascinating tale of international piracy and culture clash nearly 400 years ago and is the first book to cover this relatively unknown and under-researched incident in Irish history. Shortlisted for the Argosy Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year Award

Mediterranean Captivity Through Arab Eyes, 1517-1798

Mediterranean Captivity Through Arab Eyes, 1517-1798 PDF Author: Nabil I. Matar
Publisher: Islamic History and Civilizati
ISBN: 9789004440241
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Introduction: Mediterranean Captivities -- Qiṣaṣ al-Asrā, or Stories of the Captives -- Letters -- Divine Intervention: Christian and Islamic -- Conversion and Resistance -- Ransom and Return -- Captivity of Books -- Epilogue: Esclaves turcs in Sculpture -- Postscript: How Should the Sculptures Be Treated?