Actual Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Review:
This was a really well done book, and I highly enjoyed it. Why? I LOVE pirates, and this was one heck of a pirates’ tale. I would have given this a full 5 out of 5 stars, except for one little fluke I mentioned in one of my updates. Pages 91 and 103 were both titled “Chapter 7: Yussef,” while there was only one insert for Chapter 7 in the Table of Contents. Other than that, it was a really well done book and I recommend it as a read. ( )

Richard Zacks’ The Pirate Coast covers much the same ground as David Smethurst’s Tripoli; Zacks pays more attention to personalities and less to events, and focuses more on the land aspects of the campaign. Although William Eaton is the center of attention, nobody really comes across as especially admirable: Captain William Bainbridge, later the hero of Constitution vs. Java, is here an incompetent seaman who ran Philadelphia aground and then surrendered prematurely. Eaton is given praise for leading the overland expedition to force the bashaw of Tripoli to negotiate, but is censured for his temper and drinking habits. Tobias Lear, the negotiator of the treaty with Tripoli, is portrayed as duplicitous and diplomatically unskilled – Zacks thinks he should have held out for a better deal. Even Thomas Jefferson gets little respect; Zacks has him abandoning Eaton, Eaton’s protégée Hamet Karamanli, and the various Arab tribes and mercenaries that Eaton scraped up to invade Tripoli.


The history is straightforward, thorough, and well-researched. Only one map; it’s contemporary and therefore hard to make out. Plates of various participants; scenic halftones in the text. ( )

The only thing you hear in school is how the young United States faced down the Barbary Pirates. That's not what happened! Zacks details the double-dealing, loathesome tactics that passed for high diplomacy surrounding the attempted rescue/ransom of American sailors held as slaves by the Bashaw of Tripoli following the folly of their incompetent captain which caused them to be shipwrecked. Small wonder relationships with that part of the world are still difficult after 200 plus years. ( )

I can't believe how much I didn't know about the Barbary pirates; and how much misinformation is still propagated. This book tells a gripping story centered around William Eaton but also included insights to Thomas Jefferson, Aaron Burr, and others. The plight of the 300 American prisoners and the courage of William Eaton and his men were both very moving. The politics surrounding the Treaty of Tripoli and its aftermath was disgraceful. ( )

A somewhat clunky writing style dogs this book throughout, even though the story Zacks sets out to tell is remarkably interesting. While Jefferson rates mention in the subtitle (hey, his name sells books, I guess) naval agent provocateur William Eaton is really at the center of the book, along with diplomat Tobias Lear (who, with Jefferson, comes in for some very strong criticism from Eaton for their actions). Zacks focuses on the mission to ransom and rescue the crew of the Philadelphia, which got complicated due to Eaton's erstwhile attempts to stir up a civil war in Tripoli and overthrow the ruler there.

Zacks distills the complexities of the mission reasonably well, but the book still feels rather too long, and loses its punch in the end. ( )