"Through his exhaustive examination of the Ottoman legal strategies to confront violence at sea, Joshua White gives us the first cogent definition of the Ottoman Mediterranean in the early modern period. Moreover, he shows how these legal norms were disseminated and adopted by a wide range of actors, both European and Ottoman. White has put the early modern Ottoman Mediterranean on the map." -- Molly Greene * Princeton University * "Joshua White offers an elegant and sophisticated discussion of the Ottoman laws on piracy and tells a vivid story of swashbuckling in the early modern Mediterranean. Providing what has been, until now, a huge missing piece in the history of piracy, this book will engage and excite readers with interests in piracy, the development of the early modern state, and the formation of international law." -- Judith E. Tucker * Georgetown University * "Meticulously researched and convincingly argued, this book serves to place Islamic law and procedure into a specific time frame and reveals both the persistence and the limits of law in that turbulent period. It is valuable both as a history and description of piracy as well as a compilation of case studies of Islamic/Ottoman maritime law." -- Mark D. Welton * <i>Middle East Journal</i> * "The author's profound and wide-ranging scholarship make this book a highly important contribution to Mediterranean and Ottoman history. It is also a page-turner." -- Colin Imber * <i>Journal of Early Modern History</i> * "[A] valuable contribution, urging historians to reconsider familiar legal and geographic categories while bringing the Ottoman Empire into the history of global maritime law." -- Will Smiley * <i>Comparative Legal History</i> *