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Book of the Day - Pirates of BarbaryBy Adrian Tinniswood Cape, 352pp, £20: ADRIAN TINNISWOOD has written an absorbingly dramatic history book with an implicit instructive message to the leaders of countries whose ships are being hijacked on the seas off Somalia. International naval patrols are unable to stop today’s Somali pirates just as the navies of England, Holland and France were unable to protect merchant ships against pirates operating from bases on the Barbary Coast of North Africa four centuries ago.
Piracy that flourished in the Mediterranean in the 17th century was not brought under control until European powers occupied Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers. To end present piracy in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, should the United Nations now occupy Mughisho, the capital of Somalia? The implication is only an aside in the author’s foreword, yet makes his excellent book as relevant as reports of the latest Somali demands for ransom.
