Barbed Wire Diplomacy

Research into the history of prisoners of war has changed in the last decade. Arieh Kochavi, Simon MacKenzie, Vasilis Vourkoutiotis, Bob Moore, Kent Fedorowich and others have reclaimed the field of Second World War POW history from the grasp of sensationalism, replacing dramatic tales of escape and defiance with unvarnished analysis of the often brutal nature of POW captivity. This shift in analysis has brought with it a new focus on how the lives of prisoners were affected by wider political and military decisions made by governments in Berlin and Whitehall. The conduct of negotiations, concerning everything from quality of rations to prisoner exchange initiatives to reprisals against abuse, is now being closely examined. The main question raised by these studies also lies at the heart of Barbed Wire Diplomacy: ‘Why do states, recognising no superior legal authority, cooperate with one another in an environment that is essentially anarchic?’ (p. 16)

Criminology · Diplomacy · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prisoners of war · Sensationalism · Sociology · World War II · European history and politics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law