Captives, Colonists and Craftspeople

This innovative study draws on both archival evidence and archeological research to compare Malta's experience under the regimes of the Knights of St. John from 1530 to 1798 and afterward as a maritime outpost of the British Empire in terms of such topics as slavery, the control of resources, and globalization.

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Over the course of four centuries, the island of Malta underwent several significant political transformations, including its roles as a Catholic bastion under the Knights of St. John between 1530 and 1798, and as a British maritime hub in the nineteenth century. This innovative study draws on both archival evidence and archeological findings to compare slavery and coerced labor, resource control, globalization, and other historical phenomena in Malta under the two regimes: one feudal, the other colonial. Spanning conventional divides between the early and late modern eras, Russell Palmer offers here a rich analysis of a Mediterranean island against a background of immense European and global change.