Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Crescent Obscured, February 13, 2001
This review is from: The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815 (Paperback)
The Crescent Obscured reads like a historical novel. Robert Allison packs the book with romance, adventure, and action. Among his heroes are Steven Decatur and James Riley, and others of this fascinating period of United States history. Allison writes with a wry sense of humor, bringing history alive. The Barbary pirates, the stuff of legends and fairy tales, were real. Allison demystifies the origin of the words to the Marine song: "to the shores of Tripoli." Author Robert Allison's accounts are so vivid, you can almost imagine a movie script in progress. The last chapter of The Crescent Obscured is another extraordinary story, that of James Riley, captain of the Commerce, and his crew. Shipwrecked in the Mediterranean near the Spanish Sahara, James Riley endured two years of captivity, remaining all the while concerned about his crew and trusting Providence for their deliverance. Riley wrote a book about his experiences, called Travels and Sufferings: An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce, Wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa in the Month of August 1815. Not only did Riley recite the events of the captivity in his book, but also made references to the state of slavery. Riley's book was one of six that Abraham Lincoln claimed most influenced him. The Crescent Obscured is history made fun to read. Robert Allison teaches us what influence the Muslim world had on the infant nation. We learn that there certainly was much more than we might have expected before reading Allison's wonderful book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The crescent in context, June 21, 2008
This review is from: The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815 (Paperback)
I'll begin with outright shock at the review before mine, which characterizes this book as in the tone of academic elitism.
On the contrary, having suffered through volumes of history written for scholars, this book was refreshingly written for a reader of non-fiction generally. While enjoying a background in history that is rather extensive, my grasp of the Barbary Wars can only be explained as limited, and Allison's history served as an excellent buffer of not only the conflicts in Africa, but their social and literary impacts in the United States at the time and their impact in shaping the Islamo-American relations of centuries to come.
While this book does not represent Professor Allison's most widely accessible work, it is clearly an early symbol of his academic abilities, which has been echoed and extrapolated since.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Crescent Clarified, June 4, 2006
This review is from: The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815 (Paperback)
This book could be the quintessential book on U.S. & the Barbary coasts relationships from 1776-1815 the illustrations are really magnificent especially the 17th century portrait of a Moorish king which actually looks like a so called "North American Indian chief in full regalia". The caption also explains how Europeans always thought the Desert dwellers and North American "Indians" were parallel in likeness (because they were and are the same). This book read carefully can bring the reader into understanding the ancient Moors were indigenous to this land (North America); this story is untold in his-story books.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
