Lama Elsharif

Purdue University, Department of History

2024 Honorable Mention (Humanities)

Small Wars of Scarcity: North African Corsairing in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries 

Lama Elsharif’s dissertation entitled “Small Wars of Scarcity: North African Corsairing in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century” challenges long-accepted narratives that explain the upsurge in North African sea-raiding activities by the Ottoman North African regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. Contrary to previous research that attributes this increase in sea-raiding activities to major European geopolitical events, Lama Elsharif’s work demonstrates how corsairing played a critical role in mitigating the economic crises brought about by local environmental challenges, such as droughts, famines, and epidemic outbreaks. Her argument is original, innovative, and impactful, not only for North African history but also for European, Ottoman, and environmental history. Her dissertation draws upon a diverse collection of archival sources—such as royal decrees, memoirs, travelogues, and diplomatic correspondence in multiple languages, including Arabic, English, French, Ottoman Turkish, and translated Italian. 

The dissertation was completed at Purdue University in the Department of History under the supervision of Stacy E. Holden.

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