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White Gold

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White Gold

By: Giles Milton
Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
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About this listen

 In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and 52 of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors, fanatical Islamic slave traders, had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Sale in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder.

White Gold is an extraordinary and shocking story. Drawn from unpublished letters and manuscripts written by slaves, and by the padres and ambassadors sent to free them, it reveals a disturbing and forgotten chapter of history, told with all the pace and verve of one of our finest historians.

©2004 Giles Milton (P)2005 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks Africa Imperialism War

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All stars
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Really impressed by this story that very few people must be aware of at all.

Fantastic account of such a huge part of history!

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A wonderful book about an extraordinary aspect of history of which I knew little. Milton paints a gripping narrative.

Fascinating story

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Hugely interesting and enjoyable. I think that just about covers it, wouldn't you say, hmmm?

Excellent

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Really well told story about the white slave trade and the terrible things they went through being tortured, decapitated and worked to death amongst other things.
I didn’t realise how long it went on for, from the 16th century and right through to the mid 18th. This account tells us about hundreds of thousands of White slaves being taken from Britain, Europe and on the seas. The audio is very well read and makes a gripping listen.

Brilliant book, should be taught in schools

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Fantastic overview of the Barbary slave trade as a whole, while focusing on the highly interesting story of one particular slave. Perfect balance between storytelling and presenting the historical context of an area of history most are completely unaware of.

Insightful and extremely interesting

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This is a very well researched true story but as an audiobook it is very short and I wish I had bought it ant not wasted a credit. It is like having a starter without the main course.
Almost everybody has heard of the trade in Atlantic enslaved people but in my experience hardly anyone has heard of the Barbary slave trade. This is a travesty.
This would make a fabulous basis for an historical novel.
Narration is excellent

Well researched story

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This is a very interesting factual account about a subject I knew nothing of. It is well narrated and holds attention easily.

Fascinating story

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Great first hand accounts and expertly preformed. I fnished this fair story in one go. Would highly recommend.

Excellent

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Gritty, no holds barred description of how, for hundreds of years, european men women and children were captured by barbary pirates from North Africa and sold into slavery. Excellent history, brilliant narrative and very well read.

History of white slavery from 1st hand experience.

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I’m Irish and am married to a Moroccan. I’d been aware of the 100+ Anglo Irish slaves taken from Baltimore, this book put it into a bigger context. In the early days of the Corsairs, it seems to have been a reaction against being expelled from their homes in Spain, but what did the poor Irish and Cornish farmers have to do with all that. Before we try and claim the moral high ground, when Europe was preaching about the evils of the White Slave trade, Europe was taking far more slaves from Africa to the Americas.

Light shed on a dark subject

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