Barbed-Wire Imperialism

Aidan Forth

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780520293977
• eBook ISBN: 9780520967267
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Camps are emblems of the modern world, but they first appeared under the imperial tutelage of Victorian Britain. Comparative and transnational in scope, Barbed-Wire Imperialism situates the concentration and refugee camps of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) within longer traditions of controlling the urban poor in metropolitan Britain and managing "suspect" populations in the empire. Workhouses and prisons, along with criminal tribe settlements and enclosures for the millions of Indians displaced by famine and plague in the late nineteenth century, offered early prototypes for mass encampment. Venues of great human suffering, British camps were artifacts of liberal empire that inspiredand legitimized the practices of future regimes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• BARBED-WIRE IMPERIALISM
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Britain’s Empire of Camps
• 1. Concentrating the “Dangerous Classes”: The Cultural and Material Foundations of British Camps
• 2. “Barbed-Wire Deterrents”: Detention and Relief at Indian Famine Camps, 1876–1901
• 3. “A Source of Horror and Dread”: Plague Camps in India and South Africa, 1896–1901
• 4. Concentrated Humanity: The Management and Anatomy of Colonial Camps, c. 1900
• 5. Camps in a Time of War: Civilian Concentration in Southern Africa, 1900–1901
• 6. “Only Matched in Times of Famine and Plague”: Life and Death in the Concentration Camps
• 7. “A System Steadily Perfected”: Camp Reform and the “New Geniuses from India,” 1901–1903
• Epilogue: Camps Go Global: Lessons, Legacies, and Forgotten Solidarities
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index