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The Stolen Village | 
 enlarge | Author: Des Ekin
Publisher: O'Brien Press Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: $17.64
Buy New: $15.06
You Save: $2.58 (15%)
New (6) Used (4) from $15.06
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 228353
Media: Paperback
Edition: 5th
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 1847171044
EAN: 9781847171047
ASIN: 1847171044
Publication Date: May 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Fascinating look at a little-known event... August 1, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I picked this book up at my local bookstore from the remainder bin, thinking it would hopefully be a little interesting, or at least worth my $5...but it's really fascinating and hard to put down. The author's modern writing style makes the story fly and brings the people to life. I didn't know very much about the enslavement of whites and this story fills in the gaps in a way that is horrifying at times and yet I couldn't stop reading. The capture of white women to serve in the harem is sometimes romanticized, but the reality sounds anything but, and I had never given that much thought to what happened to men, children and elders who were enslaved. And the idea that for some people the life they found in Africa was actually better than what they had back home was amazing. I highly recomend this book for anyone interested in this time in history or in pirates; it's well worth your time.
Astonishing And Relevant April 14, 2008
This extremely readable history of an unprecedented raid on an Irish coastal town and the ensuing enslavement of it's residents is compelling and modern. The author strives not to take liberties and details his research well. Illustrating how complacency can render even the most advanced technology useless, The Stolen Village brings the people affected to heartbreaking life. From the intelligence gatherer who was ignored to the military crews underfunded, the embarrassed leaders and the abandoned hostages, all are shown sympathetically and fully. The motives of the slave takers, the probable experience of the enslaved, the conflicts of faith and the excuse of culture are all illustrated beautifully. I felt I knew these people as intimately as I know my own neighbors and I felt their plight all the more for it.
Rather than take an easy road pitting culture against culture or modern politics on a situation in the past, the author takes pains to show as many sides of the situations as he can gather. It does not excuse the events, it simply explains them. To read this book as a white person, one cannot help but look at slavery differently. The enslavement of Africa is too often studied in a vacuum, as something which happened to black people alone. It's shocking to read about the enslavement of light skinned Europeans, and the difference in opportunity for (some) slaves to regain freedom is thought provoking. Reading about the enslavement of people who were potentially your own ancestors is an experience white Americans rarely have. This is a powerful and affecting read on that level as well.
The politics and culture behind the creation of Baltimore, as it existed on the night of the raid, and it's fate afterward are just as important. It's impossible to read a history as emotionally compelling as this and not assign it personal relation to modern events based on one's own leanings. If it's Katrina, if it's Iraq, if it's 9/11 - the mind draws comparisons the author and the book do not. This is an even handed and compassionate telling of a tragedy and the adaptive power, for good or ill, of the humans affected by it..
 A Contract Hit in the 17th Century? April 7, 2008
The strong pont and the weak point of this account is the contemporarty jounalistic style of the author. The book is written in an exciting journalistic style from the first page, and yet this becomes a weakness towards the end, when the simple declaritive sentences become annoying.
The "Investigative Reporter" technique of 17th century Irish politics is informative. AN excellent technique is that the author uses modern research into hostage situations to reveasl what the victims were thinking during the abduction. The book would profit from a map of Ireland.
When this took place in 1631 it was as significant inits long-term results as 9/11 will be in the 21st century. Yet, I find the following passage on p. 308 perplexing: "...captives brought back tales of an an equal-opportunity society...Islamist ideals of equality may have influenced the creators of the American Declaration of Independence."
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