Prisoners of America's Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo

Abstract

The year 2010 was the year of studies on prisoners of war (POWS). It is about time. Historians have paid scant attention to America’s handling of its POWs. Now Stephanie Carvin’s insights join those of two other readable, but very different studies by Paul Springer and Robert C. Doyle. Springer’s America’s Captives: Treatment of POWs from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (2010) is full of original archival research that documents how the American military has given little thought and preparation to the handling of enemy combatants. Often the result has been unplanned and excessive brutality. Doyle’s The Enemy in Our Hands: America’s Treatment of Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror (2010), though it sometimes gets lost in battle narratives, focuses on how Americans have had a short fuse when confronted with perceived barbarity on the part of their adversaries. The result has been barbaric reciprocity when dealing with Tories, Indians, Philippine insurgents, and Middle Eastern “terrorists.”