Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (Hill and Wang Critical Issues) by Roger Daniels

Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II (Hill and Wang Critical Issues) Reviews

• 
  Lauren

  I've had this book on my shelf for a while, since my undergraduate days of majoring in history. It came up when I randomized my "to read" list so I decided to give it a go.
  
  It was relatively short and to the point, which I liked. My interest, as always in history, is the effect an event or time has on the people themselves. I would have liked more details about the camp and the experiences of the people who lived in them. Maybe the intent of this book was to be more of an overview, which I felt it definitely succeeded as.
• 
  LauriAnn

  This book gives a clear chronology of the events that led up to internment to the final redress payments a couple of years ago. It also shows how racism and xenophobia from the 19th century caused the mass hysteria, and also examines if this could happen in the U.S. again. It was a quick, informative read, but I would have enjoyed more from the prospective of those who where interned.
• 
  Boni Peterson

  I really wanted to know more about this awful chapter in American history. While there are some interesting facts and some pages that kept my attention, it was mostly written like a school text book. I was disappointed in the writing. I hope to find another book on this topic that is more engaging.
• 
  Lance Polin

  Three stars is generous for this slogging, academically written, frankly smug piece of editorial history. While offering some interesting historical detail on Japanese internment during world war two, the historians outrage over it ever having happened overwhelms the horrors of the actual experience from the voices of the inmates and the justifications or shame of the politicans and military personnel. This is a short, preachy work by a professor of history no doubt I would have loathed and taken a terrible counterpoint just to hear his seething outrage. I agree with most of his judgments, but as a historian attempting to explain the circumstances and reality of this national scar on the idea of the United States, it fails.
• 
  Lizzie

  While there is definitely bias present in this telling of the Japanese Americans incarceration during WWII, it is one I agree with. The history is told clearly and concisely and this book will teach you very clearly what happened in the US to Japanese Americans when they were wrongly incarcerated by the United States government
• 
  Joshua Arnett

  Good information written with the liveliness of a wikipedia article.
• 
  Theophilus (Theo)

  Sad.
• 
  John Hashimoto

  Fascinating story about a long forgotten episode in U.S. history.
• 
  Dan

  Dry, but cogent and heartbreaking and... what’s the point of living if this is how we treat each other?
• 
  Jessica (JT) Thelen

  3.5 stars
• 
  Giselle

  Had to read the first four chapters for a class, so I decided to finish out the book. Learned a lot of new things about internment during WWII.
• 
  Renee

  I think everyone has heard in passing about the Japanese Concentration camps that America set up after the bombings of Pearl Harbor but I for one was never taught about or really knew much about what these camps were or what happened to the people in the camps or anything really.
  After reading this book I understand where these camps where, what life was like in the camps, the questions that the US government faced these Japanese Americans with and how they responded to all of this. How would you react when the country you live in no longer trusts you so they herd you like cattle into small rooms that you can now called home because the home country of your parents decided to attack in a time of war?
  This book gives a clear chronological of the arrest of the Japanese people to what happened after the war and even in more modern times.
  
• 
  Patrick

  This short, but very informative book is a great read. It illuminates the specific background, sequence of events, responsible people, and beliefs that surrounded the detainment of some 100,000+ Japanese Americans into concentration camps starting in 1942 and lasting until 1946. Daniels uses an authoritative and informed voice with plenty to say about all the people involved, both within and outside the camps. The massive contradiction of Japanese American soldiers serving in the highly decorated 442nd Infantry Regiment while their family remained behind barbed wire in camps in the country they were "fighting for" is glaringly shown in this history.
• 
  Fredrick Danysh

  A brief evaluation of American internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The author addresses the history of anti-Asian racism starting in the mid-1800s as well as reasons for the relocation of the Japanese-Americans. He discusses reasons for their release beginning in 1942 but ignores the 442nd "Go For Broke" Regiment when discussing Army participation and just focuses on the language school. He also address political aaftermathx. This was a superficial treatment of the internments and some of the data is incomplete.
• 
  Jennifer Robinson

  I could not finish this book. I was looking for something with a little more story. Only gave it 4 stars because it is perfect for a history class or paper. Very informative, but little there to connect the reader to the issue.
• 
  Liam

  A clear chronology of a blemish upon the history of America. Having read this in conjunction with other sources for a class on World War II in the Pacific, the events leading up to Executive Order 9066 are all shown here. A must read for anyone wanting to know about America's Internment Camps.
• 
  Karen

  The entirety of this book isn't easy to read: sometimes because of the utterly terrible and racist injustice the US government perpetrated against Japanese Americans and other times because the writing was dry, rote fact filled with names of military personnel I'll never care to remember. I'm not one for history books that have a bunch of dates and names and this person called this person who called that person who was this person's superior but then that person... and you know what I mean. The incarceration of Japanese Americans was a highly political act, which explains why Daniel would include such boring (though very informational) chapters. I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking to write a paper on this event or about WW2 in general since many people of high status in important WW2 departments are mentioned. And even to those like me who are interested in learning more about this infamous historic event, I'd still recommend it to. I'd just say: some chapters are pretty bureaucratic and boring.
  
  Still! I learned a lot about the Japanese Americans. I particularly liked Daniels argument that the Japanese American incarceration is directly related to the anti-Asian sentiment/racism latent in American history, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Though Japanese Americans are labeled as a model race by Western/white media and conditions for Japanese Americans have definitely improved since the war hysteria from WW2, I would argue that this glorifying of the Japanese is just a different manifestation of a latent and persistent racism. White Americans may not think of them as a violent threat anymore; instead they are thought of as obedient minorities rather than equals.