A critical insight into American attitude towards north African control over the mediterranean sea in the 19th c

Abstract EN

This article aims at studying American unstable relations with early 19th c North Africa to elucidate some pertinent elements which question nowadays Western attitude towards the Barbary States in general and the Regency of Algiers in particular.

It appears that after the 11th of September events, a more radical political trend started to haunt political writings in the United States.

As a result, a number of intellectual contributions described Middle Eastern terrorist groups as a chronological extension of North African corsairs of the early 19th c.

Some went to describe them as “terrorists by another name.

” Relying on a descriptive and analytical approach, this academic contribution attempts to provide an overall historical picture and the geostrategic situation in the Mediterranean Sea of the period to highlight the chief reasons which interrogate the American view concerning the Barbary corsairs.

It investigates prominently written testimonies and available historical analysis in the field to underline major anomalies which promote such view among some American elites.