White Gold - by Giles Milton (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Giles Milton's White Gold tells the true story of white European slaves in eighteenth century Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco.

"An elegantly discursive retelling . . . customarily elegant prose." --Simon Winchester, The Boston Globe

In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow and fifty-one of his comrades were captured at sea by Barbary corsairs. Their captors--Ali Hakem and his network of Islamic slave traders--had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Pellow and his shipmates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco. Drawn from the unpublished letters and manuscripts of Pellow and survivors like him, Giles Milton's White Gold is a fascinating glimpse at a time long forgotten by history.

Review Quotes

"An elegantly discursive retelling . . . [with] customarily elegant prose." --Simon Winchester, The Boston Globe

"A fascinating account . . . a fun and fanciful story from a little-known chapter in history." --The Washington Post Book World

"Milton's story could scarcely be more action packed, and its setting and subsidiary characters are as fantastic as its events." --The Sunday Times (London)

"Entertaining reading . . . [a] genuine feel of what it was like to be a European slave in North Africa." --Los Angeles Times

"Milton has produced a disturbing account of the barbaric splendor of the imperial Moroccan court, which he brings to life with considerable panache. . . . White Gold is an engrossing, expertly told story." --The Observer (London)

About the Author