Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

situated in the United States or Europe, chose to establish his post of
observation on the shores of Algiers and look at the opposite direction but
without allowing for analysis to deviate from objectivity or be cut from western
realities—the material serving for research being exclusively western in nature,
or almost. 1 This is what one may call a trans-Mediterranean-Atlantic approach.
While doing so, the researcher hopes to approach the past from a different
angle and contribute a different perspective or as one American historian put it:
In the domain of history a shift in the angle of observation will often
bring into view new and important vistas and will create such new
impressions of old scenes as to alter our ideas of the whole landscape. 2
To understand today’s uneasy, and often hostile, American attitudes
towards Muslims, one may need to go back to that early period to attempt to
bring to light the origins of anti-Muslim bias, animosity, and aggressiveness in
United States foreign policy. One may also find it interesting but also useful to
return to the past to understand how Americans use it today to explain, analyze,
and justify their present military interventions in the Muslim world. As the
international environment has changed since those remote days so have
approaches to and interpretations of the ‘Barbary’ episode in American history.
What used to be seen as piracy is presented today as terrorism and in both cases
policies were developed to deal with both perceptions as such. 3
1 Except for a handful of secondary sources (probably less than 1% of the total material used here), the
rest of the material of research consists primarily of American state records and works undertaken by
westerners.
2 Charles M. Andrews, “Colonial Commerce,” The American Historical Review, 20: 1 (Oct., 1914), p.
43.
3 The debate linking current terrorism to Muslim ‘pirates’ of the 18 th century seems to have been first
launched by the American military historian Glenn Voelz in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks but the
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