Camps: A Global History of Mass Confinement

by Aidan Forth

Overview

The concentration of terrorists, political suspects, ethnic minorities, prisoners of war, enemy aliens, and other potentially “dangerous” populations spans the modern era. From Konzentrationslager in colonial Africa to strategic villages in Southeast Asia, from slave plantations in America to Uyghur sweatshops in Xinjiang, and from civilian internment in World War II to extraordinary rendition at Guantanamo Bay, mass detention is as diverse as it is ubiquitous.

Camps offers a short but compelling guide to the varied manifestations of concentration camps in the last two centuries, while tracing provocative transnational connections with related institutions such as workhouses, migrant detention centers, and residential schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487588281
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	07/10/2024
Series:	International Themes and Issues , #6
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Aidan Forth is an associate professor of British, imperial, and global history at MacEwan University.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Industrial Enclosure: Prisons, Workhouses, and Labour Colonies

2. Colonial Compartments: Slave Plantations and Native Reservations

3. Military Detention: Soldiers and Civilians in Modern War

4. The Soviet Gulag: Revolution, Labour, and Punishment

5. Konzentrationslager: Conquest and Genocide in the Nazi Empire

6. Asian Archipelagos: War, Empire, and Revolution in the East

7. Postcolonial Concentration: Liberal Camps from World War II to the War on Terror

8. Humanitarian Containment: Refugee Camps and Migrant Detention

Conclusion: Remembering and Forgetting

Select Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

“Camps is far more than a global history of mass confinement. In carefully drawn case studies, it exposes modernity’s condition of possibility in various carceral regimes that isolated and exploited dangerous – or potentially dangerous – groups. Whether by eliminating threats or reforming citizens, practices of coerced confinement made the modern world. A must-read.”—A. Dirk Moses, Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair in International Relations, City College of New York, and author of The Problems of Genocide
“Camps is a pioneering work not only because of its truly sweeping perspective on the camp as the quintessential form of coerced settlement in the modern age, but also because Forth shows the mutual relevance of seemingly disconnected developments. Forth introduced me to much new material and, more importantly, forced me to rethink some of my basic assumptions.”—Robert Jan van Pelt, University Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo, and author of The Case for Auschwitz and The Barrack: 1572–1914

From the Publisher