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Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture
Xenophobia, paranoia, and racism have long challenged democracy, a battle played out dramatically in the concentration camps that were built, staffed, and filled with adults and children under the orders of the U.S. government. Beginning in the nineteenth century with the imprisonment of Native Americans, camps reappeared during World War II with the roundup of Japanese Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, and Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. They resurfaced recently when Homeland Security awarded a major contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton for the construction of new camps. In Inside America's Concentration Camps, author James L. Dickerson explores the history and the tragedy of the camps in a vivid narrative that brings the stories of the victims and the flaws of our government to life. Rebecca Neugin, Eleanor Berg, Roy Abbey, Marino Sichi, Louise Ogawa—these are some of the children and adults whose stories are found here, along with accounts of the U.S. government yanking children out of orphanages to imprison them in the camps. To fight the erosion of democracy, Americans must remain aware of threats to our democratic ideals and understand where we have been. Inside America's Concentration Camps is an authoritative history, a heartbreaking and inspirational story of survival, and a call to action.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
308 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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85 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 28, 2017
The author uses stories of the American Indian reservations and World War II interment camps for ethnic Japanese as well as from the Nazi concentration camps in an attempt to argue against the detention of foreigners who enter the United States illegally.
September 8, 2010
The book was well researched and well written; however, I don't agree with the left-leaning politics of the author. I am very interested in the topic of the internment of Japanese people in the USA during the 1940s.
August 17, 2017
Well written, well researched and very informative. A part of American history that most don't know or care to understand but very important.
January 13, 2016
This is a book that primarily deals with the various internments during World War II. This one covers the full spectrum, though, covering persons of Japanese ancestry, Germans and Italians. Most of what reads about the internment concerns the Japanese Americans so the addition of learning about what happened to the Germans and the Italians is good.
This is also a book that deals with factual details but at the same time ties them in to specific examples of what happened to certain people and that alone is quite enough to get one quite angry that America threw civil rights totally to the wind and ignored it's so-called justice system just to get some people they felt were potentially dangerous out of the way.
Which, of course, is not a whole lot different from what is happening in today's world.
The book starts off examining the way the Native Americans were treated, rounded up and forced onto reservations. The reservations, like the internments, were often on land that was not basically very good. The Native Americans, like the Japanese Americans, were rounded up, not charged with any specific crime, given no defense attorney, subjected to no trial and just forced to move away from their homes under gunpoint. The only major difference is that the reservations were not surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers and Army soldiers and, in some cases, tanks.
One thing not pointed out in the book, though, is that the Native Americans were also subjected to biological warfare on the parts of the whites and some of the Native Americans were given blankets which contained smallpox spores.
The last part of the book goes into the possibility that such a thing like internment/concentration camps could very well again happen in this country with people's rights totally trampled into the ground. Now, what I will do is to just list some highlights of the book as there is so much information in the book that the review could end up being way too long.
Some of the emphasis on the camps or similar things were really the result of big-business, even back to the earliest colonies in the U.S.
Some of the things that FDR did in relation to Hawaii that do not appear in other books on this subject.
What led up to Executive Order 9066.
Life in the various camps and comparisons between the desert camps and the camps built in swamp areas.
How the Germans and Italians were treated and how this differed from the way Japanese Americans were treated.
How the U.S. turned its back on Jews seeking safety from the Nazis.
This is without doubt one of the most valuable informative books on the entire internment process.
This is also a book that deals with factual details but at the same time ties them in to specific examples of what happened to certain people and that alone is quite enough to get one quite angry that America threw civil rights totally to the wind and ignored it's so-called justice system just to get some people they felt were potentially dangerous out of the way.
Which, of course, is not a whole lot different from what is happening in today's world.
The book starts off examining the way the Native Americans were treated, rounded up and forced onto reservations. The reservations, like the internments, were often on land that was not basically very good. The Native Americans, like the Japanese Americans, were rounded up, not charged with any specific crime, given no defense attorney, subjected to no trial and just forced to move away from their homes under gunpoint. The only major difference is that the reservations were not surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers and Army soldiers and, in some cases, tanks.
One thing not pointed out in the book, though, is that the Native Americans were also subjected to biological warfare on the parts of the whites and some of the Native Americans were given blankets which contained smallpox spores.
The last part of the book goes into the possibility that such a thing like internment/concentration camps could very well again happen in this country with people's rights totally trampled into the ground. Now, what I will do is to just list some highlights of the book as there is so much information in the book that the review could end up being way too long.
Some of the emphasis on the camps or similar things were really the result of big-business, even back to the earliest colonies in the U.S.
Some of the things that FDR did in relation to Hawaii that do not appear in other books on this subject.
What led up to Executive Order 9066.
Life in the various camps and comparisons between the desert camps and the camps built in swamp areas.
How the Germans and Italians were treated and how this differed from the way Japanese Americans were treated.
How the U.S. turned its back on Jews seeking safety from the Nazis.
This is without doubt one of the most valuable informative books on the entire internment process.
March 22, 2011
I have read about 5 books on the internment camps during WWI and WWII. Hands down, this is the best book I have read, thus far. The indepthness that the author goes into I have not seen in other books. Furthermore, he has "survivors" personal accounts which I have never seen before in books I have read on this subject. I can't wait to read his books Devil's Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of Mississippi Hate Crimes and Dixie's Dirty Secret: The True Story of How the Government, the Media, and the Mob Conspired to Combat Integration and the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. They should be interesting.
ETA(03/23/2011): I finished this book 24 hours ago and there are issues that are still bothering me. The book in my opinion is still a 5 star read. In my opinion though, the author demeaned himself with the obvious bias in this book. I don't think he needed to go there and really knocked the excellent research down a peg or two. The author bashes the Bush administration (go figure!), yet gives a pass to the president's responsible for the greatest civil rights abuses in the 20th century...Yes, that would be Progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and FDR...FDR was even trying to figure out a way to give the middle finger to the Supreme Court and go around them when it was presented to them.
SPOILER ALERT...SPOILEER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT
Third and I must tell you I almost gave the book one star for this alone, the author compares prisoners in Guant.Bay to the concentration camps the Japaneese Americans and German Americans and such had to suffer through...Are you serious??? I could go on, but I would get more and more angry and the stars would disappear!
ETA(03/23/2011): I finished this book 24 hours ago and there are issues that are still bothering me. The book in my opinion is still a 5 star read. In my opinion though, the author demeaned himself with the obvious bias in this book. I don't think he needed to go there and really knocked the excellent research down a peg or two. The author bashes the Bush administration (go figure!), yet gives a pass to the president's responsible for the greatest civil rights abuses in the 20th century...Yes, that would be Progressive presidents Woodrow Wilson and FDR...FDR was even trying to figure out a way to give the middle finger to the Supreme Court and go around them when it was presented to them.
SPOILER ALERT...SPOILEER ALERT...SPOILER ALERT
Third and I must tell you I almost gave the book one star for this alone, the author compares prisoners in Guant.Bay to the concentration camps the Japaneese Americans and German Americans and such had to suffer through...Are you serious??? I could go on, but I would get more and more angry and the stars would disappear!
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January 17, 2015An interesting take on the infamy of the US government sending 120,000 Japanese Americans into concentration camps in the immediate wake of the Pearl Habor attack. Dickerson sets this in the context of concentration camps for Native Americans (as part of the forced removal of tribes in Eastern states), Germans, Italians, and Jews during World War 2, camps planned during the Korean War, camps for asylum seekers, and Guantanamo Bay. The most harrowing example was 1000 Nazi concentration camp survivors who were brought to the States and shamefully put into a concentration camp. This is the sort of history that should make any American wish it was a dystopian novel, but tragically this is a harrowing piece of non-fiction.
A worthwhile and eye-opening read.
A worthwhile and eye-opening read.
December 12, 2010
This was a very in-depth look at concentration camps, beginning with reservations. I hadn't considered reservations to be concentration camps before, but it makes total sense. The book briefly discusses concentration camps that are still being built, but I really expected this to be discussed more than it was. All in all, very insightful.
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August 1, 2010KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed by Blogcritics
Reviewed by Blogcritics
April 1, 2012
This was an excellent accounting of forcibly segregation in America. It presented a frightening portrayal of personal stories, while also exposing racism in government as the root of these facilities. It was well researched and written in a comfortable style.
October 9, 2016
Kudos to the author, I look forward to reading his other books. Comprehensive history of concentration camps in America. Very disturbing. It seems we are not learning from our past. The last two chapters left me shaking and physically ill.
June 18, 2019
Mr. Dickerson's knowledge of the Removal Act of 1830 as he explains it in the book, is not well researched, and his information regarding the internment of Cherokee after the round-up in May of 1838 is extremely limited, as are his discussions about the removal.
May 5, 2014
For some odd reason, this book never truly captured my attention. I ended up reading pieces and parts and not even skimming others.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews