Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850

I bought this book on a whim from a charity shop as it looked interesting and it didn't disappoint. It examines stories and experiences of Britons in captivity in three contexts: those captured in North Africa and in the Mediterranean area, in North America and India, in different phases of British attempts to increase its sphere of influence. Colley also looks like the publishing and other dissemination of the stories and the reactions to them. A fascinating book.

Move on, those of you who hoped to read titillating tiles of the white slave trade. No such thing here. The book starts with a relatively short part on British captives in Northern Africa, a second part on settlers in North America (who would occasionally go to live with the Indians, either voluntarily or forcibly), and a rather long and tedious part on conditions of army soldiers in India. These soldiers are called 'military captives', so as not to do too much injustice to the dramatic title (to no avail; it does feel like a dissertation on the military rank-and-file in India was given an garnish of two hastily written overviews of captives in Northern Africa and North America in order to justify the dramatic title). Even within this show more conceptual inconsistency, the book veers back and forth between general statements and individual stories, but neither are explored to the reader's full satisfaction.
The perspective remains staunchly Britain-centric throughout; little time or sympathy is spent on other captives (eg from other European countries in North Africa, or from France in North America).
The author does a good job of explaining popular sentiment in Britain during the American Revolution and on Indian matters, although it could all have done without the numerous repetitions. All in all, very uneven. show less