Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates: America's First Encounter with Radical Islam

by Richard Scott

Originally published as Jihad at Sea. America’s very first encounter with Radical Islam actually occurred as far back as 1784 when the merchant ship Betsey was attacked by Moroccan pirates off the coast of North Africa. America’s experience with Islamic terrorism didn’t start with 9/11. Nor did it begin with the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in 1983. Since 1983, American citizens and facilities throughout the world have been victimized dozens of times by Islamic terrorists. The USS Cole bombing, 9/11, the Boston Marathon bombing and Orlando are among the better known attacks. The taking of the Betsey and her crew in 1784 was the first in a long list of costly incidents in the Mediterranean Sea along the Barbary Coast of Africa. These Barbary Pirates were motivated by more than greed. They justified their plunder and killing by citing Mohammad’s and Allah’s commands to wage jihad against infidels. The conflicts between Americans and the Barbary Pirates are known as the Barbary War, a war many modern Americans have forgotten or never knew about in the first place. Jihad at Sea is an historical novel that brings to life that Forgotten War.

244 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 14, 2019

About the author

Richard Scott is a retired editor, writer, and publisher, having been president and publisher of the David McKay Company and president and publisher of Fodor's Travel Publications. He's also been managing editor of American Bookseller and Bookselling this Week. Mr. Scott was co-host with Isaac Asimov, Brendan Gill and Nat Hentoff of a talk show called In Conversation. The show was nationally syndicated in the U.S. He lives in Salem, Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Brian Gavilan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself was entertaining and enticing. I found myself not being able to put the book down at certain scenes, as I just had to know what happened next. Historically, this tome of historical-fiction serves as a great primer for this little-known period in American history.

With that being said, the reason for me giving it 3 stars is due to some issues that irked me as I was reading it. Namely, the plethora of grammatical errors strewn about the entire book. Punctuation is misused, extra words are written where there shouldn't be - e.g. "...the the..." - it looks like a rough draft of a story that needed extensive proofreading. Even in the Character List page in the beginning had the first instance of this. I saw this and instantly became skeptical of how the rest of the book would look like, and unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed. Now, that was the main, and honestly, the only big issue I found. Some parts had some cliché writing, but I can forgive that.

Despite the grammatical errors, the overall story is fascinating and recommended. Now, maybe it was just my copy that had all the grammatical errors, so maybe yours won't. In any case, it's a fun read. Defnitely check it out!

[Sylvia M Mohr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Ripping Good Read

I've just finished this book. It was a good read, gripping and ripping with the imagery of the 1st United States vs. Muslim Jihadists war...this one for the freedom to sail the Mediterrean Sea. A lot of people no doubt are unaware of these battles fought against Islamist Terrorists way back when. I very much enjoyed the characterisations of the sailors who had to deal with the terrorism of the Barbara States against our merchant fleet. Read this book and learn something in a very painless way.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ehh well written, a little ww2 dad colonialism for my taste. A of bit islam is bad now so translate that onto islam was bad then, but it seems like very different types of islam and bad so a little hard to take serious. Interesting history!