UTOPIES PIRATES - CORSAIRES MAURES ET RENEGADOS D'EUROP

by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Julius Van Daal (Translator), Hervé Denès (Translator)

Au XVIIe siècle, de nombreux Européens se convertirent à l'islam et rejoignirent les rang de la piraterie. Attirés par le gain ou pratiquant une forme de résistance sociale, c’était surtout un moyen de se démarquer d'une Europe livrée à une chrétienté inquisitoriale et tyrannique qui avait fait de cette religion son ennemi « naturel ». Naquirent alors ici et là des « républiques pirates », dont la plus connue est la République de Salé au Maroc qu'étudie ici Peter Lamborn Wilson avec autant d'érudition que de fantaisie. Ces îlots de liberté associés à la piraterie lui serviront d'ailleurs de modèle dans la formation du concept de TAZ, dont il est l'auteur sous le pseudonyme de Hakim Bey, et qui flotte sur les nouvelles générations comme le drapeau de Jolly Roger sur les mers du globe.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Pirates, Philosophy, Politics, Islam, American

240 pages, Pocket Book

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Peter Lamborn Wilson also writes under the pseudonym Hakim Bey.

Reviews

[Lois Bujold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little book, possibly best as a pointer to further reading than an end in itself if one's main focus is history as such. A brief account of early modern piracy in the Mediterranean and east Atlantic based out of the African/Islamic side, giving a good sense of how it worked through a discussion of the port city of Salé, which in the first half of the 1600s escaped, for a while, political domination from assorted surrounding, and taxing, Islamic state authorities, and hosted a kind of self-governing pirate guild. The various quoted contemporary accounts were the best part. The author has way more enthusiasm for pirates than I do, somewhat anachronistically casting them as early resisters to European class structures, proto-democratic. I don't buy this implication of idealism myself, however real the oppression, since it seems the main bread-and-butter of piracy was not more glamorous booty, but ordinary men, women, and children kidnapped and sold into slavery (or held for ransom), people as produce. Apportionment of blame between pirates and the people who were creating the market by buying their produce (on both sides of the Mediterranean, one must point out) left as an exercise in historical futility.

Ta, L.

[else fine · Rating 4 out of 5]

You always have to keep a watchful eye on Peter Lamborn Wilson. He is a trickster and a magician, and he is trying to sell you a beautiful dream. In exchange, he asks nothing more (or less) than that you take it into the core of your heart, make it your own dream, carry it with you while you build the future.

I'm not implying that he is just making shit up. He maybe embroiders here and there, highlights one thread of the tale over others - no more than any official historian does, really. Manifest Destiny. Survival of The Fittest. Better Living Through Chemistry. These are all myths, less artfully presented, that we've been told to accept as truth.

So when you are reading Pirate Utopias, bear all this in mind. It's well-researched, and clearly presented, and if he has an agenda, at least it's a gorgeous and tricky one. Here is a history of liberation, a legacy Wilson is telling us to embrace and reclaim. From his pirates we can learn how to build a future that actually works.

[Samuel]

from the book:

Just as the European Consensus of the 17th century denounced such conspiracy as treason and apostasy, so our modern media dismiss it is as "terrorism". We are not used to looking at history from a terrorist's point of view, that is from the point of view of moral struggle and revolutionary expropriation. In our modern consensus view, the moral right of killing and stealing (war and taxes) belongs only to the state; even more specifically, to the rational, secular, corporate State. Those who are irrational enough to believe in religion (or revolution) as a reason for action in the world are "dangerous fanatics." Clearly not much has changed since the 1600's. On the one hand, we have society; on the other hand, resistance.

...

History has tended to view the Renegadoes' story as meaningless, as a mere glitch in the smooth and inevitable progress of European culture toward world domination. The pirates were uneducated, poor and marginalized--and hence (it is assumed) they could of had no real ideas or intentions. They are seen as insignificant particles swept away from the mainstream of history by a freakish eddy or swirl of exotic irrationality. Thousands of conversions to the faith of the Other mean nothing; centuries of resistance to European-Christian hegemony mean nothing. Not one of the texts I've read on the subject even mentioned the possibility of intentionality and resistance, much less the notion of "Pirate Utopia."

[Chloe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novel a lot. It shed some light on the ancient pirate states of North Africa- Algiers, Tunisia, Tripoli, and Sallee- which I had previously only known of in passing, particularly the Barbary Wars in Tripoli. Wilson did a fantastic job of digging up as many primary and secondary sources possible from such non-literary societies as well as charting the progress made within those Islamic societies by European pirates and renagadoes who would turn "Turk", or convert to Islam, to escape slavery and achieve a position of stature. Sometimes the story drags, as is true with most historical texts, but my major complaint comes with Wilson's fixation on pederasty within the Moroccan culture. One gets the impression that he is using historical examples of pederasts as a means of legitimizing some personal feelings of his own. I had first noticed this when I read his Temporary Autonomous Zone writings under the name Hakim Bey but at the time wrote it off. However, this book leaves no doubt. Wilson is fixated on justifying the behavior of pederasts and while I can understand the point that he is trying to make by constantly returning to this topic, it is only loosely related to the subject matter at hand, pirates, and just gets monotonous after a time.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

The type of person who ends up here on Goodreads knows well the heartbreak of having a book recommended or, even worse, gifted upon oneself and then, well, loathing the book. Awkwardness ensues.

In the case of this book, the 20-something son of a friend gifted me this book unexpectedly. This young man has the admirable idealism and desire for a fair and just society which appears frequently in the young everywhere. Example: The last time I met him and his mom, he was fretting that, if he moved into a gentrifying neighborhood here in Washington DC, he would be displacing a poorer person that needs the housing more than he does, seeing as he currently has a comfy enough billet in nearby northern Virginia suburbs.

I suggested that, things being the way they are, acceptable housing of any type is hard enough to find, and that he should concentrate on finding something, anything, that would allow him to hang his hat while retaining peace of mind and wallet sufficient enough to allow him to concentrate more effectively on righting the world's wrongs from his new perch. I thought I detected from the young man a incipient eye-roll at the inadequacy of this answer, until his mother looked daggers at him. Or maybe I'm reading too much into the whole exchange.

In any event, it is not often that a young person spares me as much as a second thought, no less buys me an entire book, so I really wanted to like this book, but alas I could not, for the simple reason that it is a blot on the very face of literacy while also being as informative as a Macedonian fake-news factory. Reading it was as much fun as being in the isolation ward of the hospital while watching a knuckleheaded demagogue drive your country to ruin, an actual experience I had recently, so I feel I can speak with authority.

The book's main contention that, for a brief shining moment, a pirate-led anarchist republic appeared on the southern shores of the Mediterranean in the early 17th century is based mostly on the author's desire that such a thing is true. Even if the reader suspends disbelief long enough to admit that something like this, while unlikely, is at least possible, then there is really no reason to believe that any pirate-led anarchist republic, sandwiched between Ottoman and Spanish theocracies, would be anything other than a Hobbesian nightmare of barbarity, cruelty, and the dictatorship of the strong over the weak. Yet that is what we are expected to believe.

To give the author a little credit: when he lacks evidence to back up his thesis, he signals it clearly. As a result, phrases like "it seems likely", "we may hypothesize", "we can assume", "we might even go far as to", "we can ask", "we might wonder", etc., etc., pass by with the regularity of a city bus, band-aids to cover the great gaps in the actual evidence.

Perhaps my expectations that a work of history should be backed up by solid research, and not blue-sky speculation, already signals any cool hip young anarchists who have made it this far in the review that I am irredeemably stuck on an outmoded paradigm in my hopelessly backward view that published works of history should attempt to back its thesis up with evidence, preferably from primary sources, rather than wander off onto topics which seem to be solely determined by the author's interest in them.

Speaking of the author's interests, if you hang in there to the end of the text, the author reveals (about page 185 of my paperback edition) a rather disturbing interest in "man-boy love" -- an interest that, if
Wikipedia is to be believed, is not confined to this book. Call me bougie if you wish, but this is unacceptable. Full stop. End of discussion.

When the mask slips like this, the reader can see at last the real aim of the author. The only freedom that he is actually interested in is the freedom to exploit those weaker, younger, poorer, stupider, or simply more innocent. In this respect, the author differs from the most conscienceless corporate raider only in the manner of exploitation that he wishes to engage in.

[Jessie B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at pirates and how they fit into the line between Europe and Islamic cultures as well as a study of outsiders. It made me wish me want to find out more though as the book points out, due to the illiteracy of its subjects it may be impossible to get their true perspective.

[Interzonatron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this back almost 6 months ago & didn’t finish until today. I burned through the first ~100 pages absolutely loving it. But between page 100 - 180 it gets pretty historically dense, lots of information that is certainly very important (and that I plan to come back to) but at this time I found rather boring. But the ending of the book, wow - SubhanaAllah - beautiful. I’ve realized Hakim Bey (ra) is really a master at ending books. Almost every one of his books ends with such beautiful, imaginative and optimistic prose - I wish I could just live within in. But perhaps we do. Once you read these works & internalize them, it fundamentally transforms the landscape around you and I suppose in a way you live in a different world than those who haven’t read it.

[Jan Kjellin · Rating 1 out of 5]

För att vara en bok som handlar om "en permanent upprorisk samhällsform", handlar Piraternas Utopi väldigt lite om "en permanent upprorisk samhällsform". I alla fall berörs det inte på det sätt jag hade hoppats på. Det är bakgrund och enskilda personer och när Wilson emellanåt kommer fram till den här förmenta samhällsformen visar det sig mest handla om rena spekulationer och tolkningar.

Det finns en vilja att ge upprättelse till "piraterna" och deras livsstid som jag uppskattar. Men den viljan i sig räcker inte för att ursäkta alla sidospår som Wilson hela tiden halkar in på istället för att följa den (trodde jag) utstakade vägen.

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things I liked about this book: Wilson counters traditional historical views of 17th century renegadoes (Christian Europeans who converted to Islam and became corsairs and pirates) which deny the renegadoes any agency of their own. In contrast, Wilson demonstrates that these men and women had intentions, and ideas of their own. Their conversion to Islam at a time when most of Europe was engaged in the Crusades can be seen as a revolutionary act, and also demonstrates that there may have been what Wilson calls "the positive shadow of Islam" in Europe--meaning that while mainstream European society vilified Islamic culture, there must have been a counter-current of positive associations of Islam that would have inspired people to Apostate by the hundreds.

Things I didn't like about this book: Wilson sets out on a fairly ambitious project, which he admits he cannot quite pull off: to prove the existence of coherent pirate cultures that were revolutionary, anarchistic, and intentionally Utopian. My favorite parts of the book are those sections where he goes into deep analysis to flesh out that idea. Unfortunately, the book is filled with detailed anecdotes of pirate activities (quoted at length from other texts) which are neither very interesting, nor very relevant to his argument. The extensive quotations which often run several pages long make it difficult to keep Wilson's voice separate from those he is quoting.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a fairly historically ignorant person I didn't have the context to grok a lot of the analysis of political structures and relationships in this work, and had a hard time seeing the "utopia" in a lot of it. Luckily the other subject, pirates, holds the attention well! This is the only historical writing I've seen that attempts to sympathetically picture a society that left none of its own history, and is usually portrayed by the writings of their enemies and victims. There are some good historical stories related - fuel for the imagination of pirate life, and interesting insights about the role of religion and anarchy in it.

[Lou Corn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this over two summers with huge pauses in between because I mostly tried to read it at the beach. By the end, the author reveals more and more of his….idiosyncrasies. The added chapter on pirate descendants in Brooklyn was a very exciting end. I don’t know if I’m convinced by the pirate utopia argument completely but what fascinating histories.

[Jerome · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book on a couple of levels. First, it concerns itself with the history of a largely ignored group: the Muslim "regenados," or European "defectors" from Christendom who joined the Barbary corsairs preying on European shipping in the Mediterranean and beyond. Wilson specifically focuses on the port city of Salé-Rabat, which is unique in that it was largely free from Ottoman rule. The second interesting thing about this book is that the historical record is almost non-existent. Wilson posits a number of conditional suppositions, building a theoretical history around them. That being said, the extant historical record is a fascinating one. Islamic scribes & scholars, European agents, escaped slaves, and Moorish pirates who returned to Europe left behind just enough textual evidence on which Wilson is able to build up a pastiche history, sewn together on a couple of theoretical points: that members of the laboring class were sufficiently disaffected by the Christian/Capitalist order in Europe that they looked upon Islam as an attractive alternative; that they also perceived piracy as a way of striking against that order; and that Salé-Rabat was in actuality a self-organized pirate utopia.

Wilson's revisionist history of Barbary pirates is less convincing than that made by Marcus Rediker or Peter Linebaugh, but it is still a fascinating glimpse at the Islamic pirates of the early 17th century.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting and i learnt much, but the narrative is meandering and lacks focus. The author's style was irritating. He admits at the outset he has relied on secondary sources. This is fair enough, but to say he is reliant would be an understatement. Huge chunks of the book are given over to direct quotes from other books. Many of these quotes are pages long. And when i say pages long i am not exaggerating... some run to 4 or 5 pages. This is lazy writing and gave what could have been a good book a cut and pasted feel.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Avast! A world of freebooters, scallywags, sword-wielding proto-libertarians and high adventure awaits ye! Regardless of whether the mindless pirate-craze is still around, you will want to read this book. Why? Because few uncover the secret side of history like Peter Lamborn Wilson. Have at you!

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the study of piracy as a form of social resistance is intriguing, it's hard to discern fact from fiction in this curious work.

[Karin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before the well-known pirates of the Caribbean, there were the ”Barbary Coast” (Maghreb coast) pirates of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes tells a story of these Muslim pirates, and of the several thousand Europeans (primarily captives) who converted to Islam and joined them.

Wilson focuses especially on the European converts, ”Renegadoes”, hoping to find their motivations, their tale. He therefore focuses on the port of Salé in Morocco, which for several decades was independent, multicultural, and governed by pirates as a more or less functioning republic: possibly, one of the eponymous ”pirate utopias”.

I exaggerate when I say ”focuses”, however. This is not a history book, but rather a sprawling historical essay. There are few first-hand sources to draw from, and none from the Renegadoes themselves, and Wilson goes from there to (he freely admits) pure wishful thinking and several instances of ”we can’t prove this is how they thought, so it’s not impossible!” This is ameliorated by the fact that these flights of fancy are so hopeful. They _might_ have converted because 16th century Islam was far more democratic, pleasure-loving and wisdom-seeking than 16th century Christendom (for men). They _might_ have become pirates as an act of proto-Marxist social resistance. They _might_ be the original fathers of modern democracy already.

There are a lot of sources very properly quoted and a very proper bibliography, and I do feel I know quite a lot more about Maghreb history and pirate history. The rest of the story is wildly tendentious and very romanticising, but most of it is quite seductive to those of us who romanticise pirates – though there are some problematic romanticisings in the book as well, let it not be unsaid. In conclusion, I do recommend to fellow amateur piratologists, but take it with bushels of salt, if also hope.

[Morgana Verena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected, even though, it succeded in its topic. I've never seen piracy depicted in such an equal way as Peter describes, this type of content is gold in the pirate history and study field. When I started this book, I was expecting it to be more of a brief history on the pirates - and although it was much more than that, it also had a few chapters that I didn't care (like the religion one - I don't care about the religion at the time and what drove those people to believe in, I care about the pirate way of living and more concrete record of how they thought and lived -- and yes, I know religion could indicate those, but I was expecting a dive into these topics and not just religion in general). Nonetheless, this book was an important approach to pirates and renegades, I though it was very interesting and am so glad that this author chose Marxism to depict the subject.

Piracy is indeed a form of resistance for its time.
We're needing more of that nowadays.

[Baturalp Erdoğan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wilson, Avrupalı "dönme" korsanların, Mağrip diyarına yelken açıp aralarına katıldıkları Türk, Arap, Berberi korsanların denizciliğine yaptıkları katkıları, onları oraya çeken sebepleri, Salé'deki (bugün Fas'ın başkenti Rabat'a bağlı deniz kenarında bir yerleşim yeri) ütopik korsan cumhuriyetini gayet güzel irdelemiş. Kitabın adı da oradan geliyor. Salé'nin dışında Cezayir'deki, Tunus'taki korsan faaliyetlerine de sürekli değinmiş ve Jan Janszoon (Murad Reis), John Ward (Yusuf Reis), Simon Danser, Ali Biçnin Reis gibi "Türk'e dönen" ünlü korsanları tanıtmış, maceralarından bahsetmiş. Adrian Tinniswood'un Pirates of Barbary kitabı ile birlikte iyi ikili olurlar.

[Meg Merriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some history on the pirates of the Barbary coast from a perspective that distances itself from Western preconceptions about Muslims and pirate nations. It was a quick read full of pirate tales almost too absurd to be true. Sometimes history is stranger than fiction.

[Andy Caffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating exploration of Moorish corsair republics, primarily in Morocco in the first couple of decades of the 1600s.

Could be that our own democratic tradition originated from these Islamic pirate cultures in the region! Who woulda known that Mohammed is as American as Apple Pie!

[Nate Bohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the stuff about pirates and democracy, not so fond of the final chapters regarding man-boy love relations.

[jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

sally forth!
hoist the jolly roger!

[Lourvens Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 very interesting book with some new information being presented to me, wasn’t what I was expecting though

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Cannon blast of Grape Shot to Disney and the Pirates of the Caribbean! Well I like the other also, but this is a whole new twist.

Warning, this is a scholarly read and lots off author opinions, likely 100% true.

Essentially Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) explores the precursor to the Caribbean Pirates and the cross cultural exchanges and the proto "Anarchism" the early quasi TAZ the realm of the Moorish Pirates had for their "Chrstian turn'd Turke" characters for near a century. Philosiphy, freedom, bedroom habits... Uh, some might be a little queasy at the end...

Heh, I'd love to make a "Moorish Pirate" movie someday, or maybe write a historical fiction book about it...


But Hakim gets some criticism for his "Temporary Autonomous Zone" concept who cares that it's real... This book is a neat primer for it. Essentially reading it can transport you into some kind of self made dream of being a moorish pirate and being free in a way we aren't today... And that's the point of the TAZ - you create it inside you, then when and if the opportunity arises you plant the seed for a period of freedom for others.

[Filomena Sottile]

Un'indagine su d'una comunità repubblicana, democratica, interrazziale, gestita da pirati. Le prove documentarie - scarsissime - talvolta traballano e Hakim Bey romanza, inventa, immagina, ma tutto resta nel regno del sogno plausibile e , d'altra parte, in perfetta coscienza, l'autore fin dal principio dichiara che laddove gli storici autentici lasciano buchi tocca ai piratologi - dilettanti per antonomasia - colmarli.

Lasciamo che i rinnegati facciano di nuovo il loro ingresso nei sogni agitati della civiltà
Hakim Bey

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Admit it, you want to know more about pirates. Well, this author definitely knows his stuff, and has some very interesting theories about pirates organized themselves and their day to day lives. However, it is important to keep mind after you read this book which parts are proved by historical documents and which parts are the author's conjecture (no matter how well argued) as he tends to used both interchangibly towards the end.

[Rai · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not as exciting as I thought it would be. I liked the info, but was not as into the author's presumptions, often sexist, about what was cool, and what folks who left no written record were thinking. But you learn a bit about the history of the pirate empires and domains of old, and that's cool. In the end, I put it down about 3/4 of the way through and haven't picked it up again. I will say that it's a great sized book to carry around in your purse without hurting your back!

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does a nice job of illuminating a not well documented segment of pirate history, namely the Sally Rovers of Sale, Morocco, and the large population of Christian converts and emigres they included. He finds some fascinating information but is definitely hampered by the lack of information available. As a result, he does a lot more speculating than is done in most histories. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. Still, the book is worth checking out. Recommended.

[ValeriZentsov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a history book.

Got that?

NOT A HISTORY BOOK.

That settled, one can review this book as an interesting thought-piece. PL Wilson (AKA Hakim Bey) is a fun writer, conjuring his arguments like a Walt Disney grand vizier, pulling together disparate pieces of evidence, assumption, and fabrication with deft sleight of hand.

The result is actually quite satisfying, but the book must be read with a degree of sceptical reservation!

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you into pirates? Are you into anarchism? Read this book and you can learn all about 15th and 16th century anarcho-pirates in Algiers and other parts of North Africa and the Caribbean. It's fascinating.