Americans at War with the Ottoman Empire: US Mercenary Force in the Middle East

We live an age of proxy warfare across the Middle East, and of mercenary armies operating across Africa and on the fringes of Europe. America’s current foreign policy, or at least its representation in the media, seems to suggest there has been a deep and "Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire examines the role of mercenary figures in negotiating relations between the United States and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. Mercenaries are often treated as historical footnotes, yet their encounters with the Ottoman world contributed to US culture and the impressions they left behind continue to influence US approaches to Africa and the Middle East. The book's analysis of these mercenary encounters and their legacies begins with the Battle of Derna in 1805 - in which the US flag was raised above a battlefield for the first time outside of North America with the help of a mercenary army - and concludes with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 - which was witnessed and criticized by many of the US Civil War veterans who worked for the Egyptian government in the 1870s and 1880s. By focusing these mercenary encounters through the lenses of memory, sovereignty, literature, geography, and diplomacy, Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire reveals the ways in which mercenary force, while marginal in terms of its frequency and scope, produced important knowledge about the Ottoman world and helped to establish the complicated relationship of intimacy and mastery that exists between Americans in the United States and people in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, South Sudan, and Turkey."--Bloomsbury Publishing Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire examines the role of mercenary figures in negotiating relations between the United States and the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century. Mercenaries are often treated as historical footnotes, yet their encounters with the Ottoman world contributed to US culture and the impressions they left behind continue to influence US approaches to Africa and the Middle East. The book's analysis of these mercenary encounters and their legacies begins with the Battle of Derna in 1805-in which the US flag was raised above a battlefield for the first time outside of North America with the help of a mercenary army-and concludes with the British occupation of Egypt in 1882-which was witnessed and criticized by many of the US Civil War veterans who worked for the Egyptian government in the 1870s and 1880s. By focusing these mercenary encounters through the lenses of memory, sovereignty, literature, geography, and diplomacy, Americans at War in the Ottoman Empire reveals the ways in which mercenary force, while marginal in terms of its frequency and scope, produced important knowledge about the Ottoman world and helped to establish the complicated relationship of intimacy and mastery that exists between Americans in the United States and people in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, South Sudan, and Turkey. --Provided by publisher Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Figures Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Memory and Exceptionalism at the Battle of Derna, 1805 2. Sovereign Equality among Men and Nations, 1815–28 3. Literary Mercenaries in Istanbul, 1831–53 4. The Monstrous Geography of Central Africa,1874–75 5. Mercenary Diplomacy on the Nile, 1869–82 Bibliography Notes Index