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French response to the capture and enslavement of French citizens and subjects by Muslim corsairs in the Mediterranean.

Captives and Corsairs uncovers a forgotten story in the history of relations between the West and Islam: three centuries of Muslim corsair raids on French ships and shores and the resulting captivity of tens of thousands of French subjects and citizens in North Africa. Through an analysis of archival materials, writings, and images produced by contemporaries, the book fundamentally revises our picture of France's emergence as a nation and a colonial power, presenting the Mediterranean as an essential vantage point for studying the rise of France. It reveals how efforts to liberate slaves from North Africa shaped France's perceptions of the Muslim world and of their own \"Frenchness\". From around 1550 to 1830, freeing these captives evolved from an expression of Christian charity to a method of state building and, eventually, to a rationale for imperial expansion.Captives and Corsairs thus advances new arguments about the fluid nature of slavery and firmly links captive redemption to state formation-and in turn to the still vital ideology of liberatory conquest.

This study, which examines the French experience of captivity in the Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli and Morocco, considers both the mechanics and perceptions of an often forgotten phenomenon that pitted Crescent against Cross and implicated tens of thousands of subjects. When French fishermen, merchants or fortune seekers set sail during the early modern period, they had reason to fear seizure by pirates and internment in North African prisons. Condemned to a lifetime of servitude in Muslim lands if they did not die, escape, convert or purchase their freedom, slaves spent months to decades awaiting deliverance. Sometimes families and communities managed to raise the necessary ransom money; on other occasions the king dispatched warships and emissaries to demand the captives' release. Often the work of redemption fell to one of two Catholic orders founded during the Crusades. Tracking these charitable, military and diplomatic responses to Barbary captivity, and considering various representations in processions, narratives and correspondence, this study delineates changing notions of French allegiance and changing relations with North Africa over two hundred years. In the seventeenth century, French leaders viewed captivity as a regrettable but prosaic risk of travel—one manifestation of extra-territorial violence perpetrated by enemy equals, who might be fought but not vanquished. Although Catholic and secular authorities made regular attempts to combat piracy and liberate slaves, whether to defend French commercial and strategic interests or save souls from apostasy, they did not seek to stamp out the phenomenon altogether. In the eighteenth century, however, as the religious rationale for redemption became less potent, officials and captives alike increasingly cast the enslavement of French subjects by perceived inferiors as both inhumane and an affront to France's honor. By 1830 the Mediterranean slave system from which France suffered (but also profited) had virtually disappeared. Yet the very idea of citizens in chains served as a pretext for invading and then colonizing Algeria.

Despite rhetoric that he supports increased funding for gifted education programs, Education Secy Richard Riley could make the situation worse by rechanneling financing for gifted education. The political fight over this issue and Riley's political wavering on the subject are discussed.

The downward trend in readmissions has recently slowed. New enhancements to hospital readmission reduction efforts are needed. Structured assessment of patient readiness for discharge has been recommended as an addition to discharge preparation standards of care to assist with tailoring of risk-mitigating actions. To determine the effect of unit-based implementation of readiness evaluation and discharge intervention protocols on readmissions and emergency department or observation visits. The Readiness Evaluation and Discharge Interventions (READI) cluster randomized clinical trial conducted in medical-surgical units of 33 Magnet hospitals between September 15, 2014, and March 31, 2017, included all adult (aged ≥18 years) patients discharged to home. Baseline and risk-adjusted intent-to-treat analyses used difference-in-differences multilevel logistic regression models with controls for patient characteristics. Of 2 adult medical-surgical nursing units from each hospital, 1 was randomized to the intervention and 1 to usual care conditions. Using the 8-item Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale, the 33 intervention units implemented a sequence of protocols with increasing numbers of components: READI1, in which nurses assessed patients to inform discharge preparation; READI2, which added patient self-assessment; and READI3, which added an instruction to act on a specified Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale cutoff score indicative of low readiness. Thirty-day return to hospital (readmission or emergency department and observation visits). Intervention units above median baseline readmission rate (>11.3%) were categorized as high-readmission units. Among the 33 intervention units, 17 were low-readmission units and 16 were high-readmission units. The sample included 144 868 patient discharges (mean [SD] age, 59.6 [17.5] years; 51% female; 74 605 in the intervention group and 70 263 in the control group); 17 667 (12.2%) were readmitted and 12 732 (8.8%) had an emergency department visit or observation stay. None of the READI protocols reduced the primary outcome of return to hospital in intent-to-treat analysis of the full sample. In exploratory subgroup analysis, when patient self-assessments were combined with readiness assessment by nurses (READI2), readmissions were reduced by 1.79 percentage points (95% CI, -3.20 to -0.40 percentage points; P = .009) on high-readmission units. With nurse assessment alone and on low-readmission units, results were mixed. Implemented in a broad range of hospitals and patients, the READI interventions were not effective in reducing return to hospital. However, adding a structured discharge readiness assessment that incorporates the patient's own perspective to usual discharge care practices holds promise for mitigating high rates of return to the hospital following discharge. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01873118.