This book explores the role of captivity in the production of knowledge, identity, and authority in the early modern imperial world. The practice of captivity attests to the violence that infused relations between peoples of different faiths and cultures in an age of extraordinary religious divisiveness and imperial ambitions. The author demonstrates that tales of Christian captives among Muslims, Amerindians, and hostile European nations were not only exploited in order to emphasize cultural oppositions and geopolitical hostilities, but to valorize the knowledge and mediating abilities acquired by captives through cross-cultural experience. She shows how the flexible identities of captives complicate clear-cut national, colonial, and religious distinctions.