The Rise and Fall of America's Concentration Camp Law

Civil Liberties Debates from the Internment to McCarthyism and the Radical 1960s

Bibliographic Data

ID4155363
AuthorsNatsu Taylor Saito (0009-0009-5043-8370, Georgia State University College of Law, Atlanta, Georgia, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume107
Issue3
Pages790-791
Publication date2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of American History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jahist/jaaa432
OpenAlexW3110840377
LanguageEN
Citations received3

Not many Americans remember—or were ever taught—that in 1950 Congress authorized the preventive detention of persons who might engage in sabotage or espionage during a national security crisis. Pursuant to this Emergency Detention Act, also known as Title II of the Internal Security (McCarran) Act, the Justice Department constructed six facilities intended to serve as concentration camps for such suspects, should the president declare an internal security emergency. In The Rise and Fall of America's Concentration Camp Law, Masumi Izumi examines both the immediate origins and the broader social context of this law and its 1971 repeal. For such a draconian measure, Title II has received remarkably little attention, perhaps because it was never explicitly invoked. This book provides a detailed explanation of the political perspectives and pressures attending the Joseph McCarthy era, as well as those that led Richard M. Nixon, somewhat ironically, to support its repeal. Through

Civil liberties · Context (archaeology · Economic Justice · Espionage · Political science · Politics · Repeal · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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