The Uskoks of Senj

"The Uskoks of Senj is a study of piracy, privateering, and banditry in an area stretching from the Adriatic Bay of Kotor to Istria, and along the military frontiers of three empires-Habsburg, Ottoman, and Venetian. Complemented by a splendid choice of published sources, the book is an exemplary contribution to the history of the sixteenth-century Adriatic and Balkans."-American Historical Review "Bracewell explains with care why the uskoks were able to provide a vehicle for the expression of a political and social identity for the people of the border. This book not only brings the uskoks into the light but also is a pathbreaking study of the nature of group identity and popular political consciousness in the sixteenth century."-Sixteenth Century Journal "Bracewell delves into the cultural and political attributes that transformed the coastal town of Senj into a crusading fortress. She also strives to ascertain exactly who undertook the hazardous and often ineffectual labor of combating the Ottoman 'Turk,' and why they did so. Bracewell argues that frontier culture shaped the Uskoks and their ethos. It forced them to be obstinate and shockingly pitiless."-Journal of Modern History In this highly original and influential book, Catherine Wendy Bracewell reconstructs and analyzes the tumultuous history of the uskoks of Senj, the martial bands nominally under the control of the Habsburg Military Frontier in Croatia, who between the 1530s and the 1620s developed a community based on raiding the Ottoman hinterland, Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, and shipping on the Adriatic.

Catherine Wendy Bracewell is a Reader in Southeast European History at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She is coeditor most recently of Balkan Departures: Travel Writing from Southeastern Europe (as Wendy Bracewell).