Peskin's splendid book gives the reader a new way to look at the Barbary piracy. -- John A. C. Greppin Times Literary Supplement 2009 Peskin's work should be welcomed as providing an important piece to the larger unfolding story of Western interaction with the Arab world. -- Paul Baepler New England Quarterly 2009 After September 11 2001, many books have explored the clash between the United States and the Barbary States in the years bridging the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, seeking the traces of early national engagement in the Muslim world... [Peskin] finally moves beyond these publications, bringing both new sources and new ideas into play... The debate over the Barbary Wars was pivotal in American contemporary politics and public opinion. -- Marco Sioli Journal of American Studies 2010 Captives and Countrymen is an important contribution to our understanding of the public sphere, nationalism, and imperiialism in the early republic. -- Andrew M. Schocket Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 2009 Peskin provides an important contribution to the understanding of the development of American nationalism. -- Paul A. Gilje American Historical Review 2010 A well-researched, closely argued book from which both general readers and specialists alike will benefit. -- Franklin T. Lambert Diplomatic History 2011
