Hannah Barker (1)

Referring to a great variety of sources, including many in Italian dialects and Arabic, Barker provides an overview of the trade and social aspects of slavery as practiced in Venice, Genoa, and Mamluk Egypt/Syria with regards to enslaved captives imported from the Black Sea littoral. The book testifies to the widespread and brutal tendency of human beings in various times and places to treat others as commodities and to impose various types of unfree status upon them. One frame of reference throughout the book, which is historically appropriate, is the conflict between Muslim and Christian polities throughout the era and how this balanced against the tendencies to engage in trade and some limited cultural mixing between these groups. (An added element of complexity comes from the recurring conflicts within each religious sphere, such as the wars between Venice and Genoa and the conflicts between the Mamluks and the Ottomans.) Many of the author's arguments are well-made, though I remained unconvinced by the dismissal of contemporary descriptions of Christian merchants willing to sell slaves and military goods to the Mamluks as "bad Christians". Barker suggests that it was not greed but economic interest that drove them to engage in acts that supplied their notional enemies with important commodities. It seems to me that "greed" and "economic interest" coalesce in many circumstances, and calling them entirely different things is less than convincing.… (more)