Measuring the Military Decline of the Western Islamic World: Evidence from Barbary Ransoms

This paper uses data on more than 4000 captives ransomed from the Barbary corsairs to track the military power of the Ottoman Empire’s most powerful North African regency over time. Results suggest that as the seventeenth century advanced, Algerian-based corsairs found it increasingly difficult to capture “hard” targets. These results do not appear to be driven by changes in ransoming preferences or by other unobserved factors and provide insights into both the timing and reasons behind the military decline of the Western Islamic World. ∗Harvard University. For comments and helpful discussions I thank Mauricio Drelichman, Stan Engerman, Joachim Voth and two anonymous referees. Judith Gallego provided able research assistance. I am responsible for all remaining errors.