Captives and Companions

A bold, brilliant and timely history that confronts one of the most neglected and uncomfortable subjects in global history. Justin Marozzi brings to life the complexity and humanity of the Islamic world’s entanglement with slavery using an extraordinary range of sources, across more than a millennium and across sweeping geographies. Not just a mesmerising book, but a profoundly important one too

Peter Frankopan, author of <i>The Silk Roads: A New History of the World</i>

Well written ... important and well-researched ... Marozzi is able both to redress the balance and to draw very effectively on recent scholarship. A richly impressive book

Jeremy Black, Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM)

An unsentimental unveiling of a subject that has long been shrouded in scholarly purdah...An elegant and ambitious synthesis, serving up a scintillating compendium of lives.. .Gliding through the ages, Marozzi's prose recalls an older tradition of history writing - the effortless fluidity of a John Julius Norwich of Jan Morris. Reading him one thinks of Tintoretto: vast canvases, mannered style, high drama, narrative drive

Pratinav Anil, The Times

A remarkably humane work, written in urbane and polished prose. A rare combination of the erudite and the adventurous, the author... provides first-person glimpses into contemporary slavery in Mali, Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania. Marozzi has once again made a meaningful and enjoyable contribution to historical debate

Bartle Bull, Literary Review

A powerful and important book ... [while] he is careful not to turn his book into a polemic against Islam.. it is... a masterly and thoughtful study of human cruelty and endurance

Gerard Russell, Financial Times

A scrupulously fair, fearless and detailed history

Christopher Hart, Daily Mail

truly an eye opening read, from past to present, it's shocking, yet totally absorbing – a history book that brings the then and the here-and-now graphically to life

Peter French, Sunderland Echo

Islamic slavery is poorly documented. Anecdotal evidence is plentiful but may be untypical. Reliable statistics are scarce ... Justin Marozzi’s Captives and Companions is a successful attempt to fill this gap

Jonathan Sumption, Spectator

This study is essential reading because it helps put into a modern context a phenomenon which is often viewed as of purely historical interest… Marozzi is excellent on the different forms slavery took during the six centuries the Ottoman empire lasted… a combination of erudition and empathy in these times of binary nonsense about Islam versus the West makes Captives and Companions a work of humanity

Francis Ghilès, Arab Weekly