Publication

This paper explores how the emerging US political order was influenced by the views of Muslim societies held by prominent 19th century writers. The author argues that conflicts with Algiers and Tripoli were prompted by an economic desire to open the Mediterranean to US trade, but also reflected a profound ideological and cultural conflict between the country and Islamic societies. According to him, Americans regarded Algiers and Tripoli as models of despotism and decadence, and by defeating them hoped to prove that the US would not succumb to the same political and cultural evils Americans believed had subdued the people of the Barbary states.