Presenting nearly 300 signed A‐Z entries, mostly with short reading lists, supported by a six‐page bibliography, and lengthy extracts from four relevant texts, what this instructive new encyclopedia, compiled by a team of 85 mainly North American academics, makes clear is that being a POW is not a matter of merry japes with Richard Wattis and the boys tunnelling out of Oflag XXVIII, aided by a set of apparently short‐sighted and totally inadequate goons but, more often than not, a demoralising experience at best and, at worst, in extreme cases, one more example of man’s inhumanity to man.
Although concentrating on the last two centuries, the Encyclopedia ranges as far back as Ancient Egypt, whose Pharaohs, who held the power of life and death over all prisoners, seemed to have treated them in a comparatively enlightened manner. Three recent wars illustrate conflicting codes of conduct. In the Falklands War of 1982 (contributed by a member of the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards) the prisoners of both sides received good treatment as far as the prevailing conditions allowed. Some rather unnecessarily robust service humour was injected when Red Cross visitors made unfavourable comments, when visiting Argentine POWs, about the lack of showers, not noticing, or not caring, or both, that their captors were equally unencumbered with shower facilities. As the entry so concisely puts it: “the Geneva Convention doesn’t mention that the water had to be hot”.
The treatment handed out to POWs in the Gulf War of 1990‐1991 and in the Bosnian War of 1992‐1995 descended to a much lower level. In Iraq, Coalition POWs were paraded on television obviously much the worst for wear and were dispersed to various strategic points as so‐called “human shields”. On the other hand, Iraqi POWs in Coalition hands were not wanted back by their Government or had no wish to return anyway. And, as we all saw on our television screens, the taking of prisoners in Bosnia often appeared to be the first stage of ethnic cleansing with all the barbarities that implies.
But this is not simply a procession of wars from ancient through medieval to modern times but a sensible and dispassionate work dealing with familiar or little known events (see the Featherston Incident); the Geneva Conventions; individual prisoners of war (Winston Churchill, Edith Cavell, P.G. Wodehouse, but not Napoleon Bonaparte on St Helena); interrogation; indoctrination; famous prisons (Andersonville, Changi, Colditz, Dartmoor, Black Hole of Calcutta); fiction (The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Manchurian Candidate, Slaughterhouse‐Five); POW films (Hogan’s Heroes, Stalag 17, The Captive Heart); Internment (Defence Regulations 18B, Isle of Man, Civilian Internees ‐ World War II); colonial wars (Afghan, Maori, Ashanti); prison ships; forcible repatriation, etc. etc. Apart from Napoleon whose imprisonment rates only one sentence in the entry on Napoleonic Wars, the only surprising omission is any mention of the internment and murder of the Tsar’s family by the Bolsheviks. On balance that would seem to merit an entry. An entry on Libraries in POW camps deserves to stimulate further research although, for the life of me, I cannot decide whether it could be sold to supervisors as an example of social inclusion or social exclusion.
A total of 40 pages are dedicated to appropriate documents; Instructions For The Government Of The Armies Of The United States In The Field (The Lieber Code) of 1863 (extracts); 1907 Hague Convention IV With Respect To The Laws And Customs Of War On Land (extracts); Geneva Convention Relative To The Treatment Of Prisoners Of War 1929 (in full) and 1949 (extracts). They bring to an end an Encyclopedia conceived with some imagination and executed with admirable verve. It earns high marks for its wide coverage and well‐documented entries.
