Karl Hack – författare

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the ‘Death Railway’ between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. While POWs were deployed far and wide as a captive labour force, civilian internees were generally detained locally.

This book explores differences in how captivity was experienced between 1941 and 1945, and has been remembered since: differences due to geography and logistics, to policies and personalities, and marked by nationality, age, class, gender and combatant status. Part One has at least one chapter for each ‘National Memory’, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and American. Part Two moves on to forgotten captivities. It covers women, children, camp guards, internee experiences upon the end of the war, and local heroines who fought back.

By juxtaposing such a wide variety of captivity experiences – differentiated both by category of captive and by approach - this book transcends place, to become a collection about captivity as a category. It will interest scholars working on the Asia-Pacific War, on captivities in general, and on the individual histories of the countries and groups covered.

Experiences of captivity in Japanese-occupied Asia varied enormously. Some prisoners of war (POWs) were sent to work in Japan, others to toil on the ‘Death Railway’ between Burma and Thailand. Some camps had death rates below 1 per cent, others of over 20 per cent. While POWs were deployed far and wide as a captive labour force, civilian internees were generally detained locally.

This book explores differences in how captivity was experienced between 1941 and 1945, and has been remembered since: differences due to geography and logistics, to policies and personalities, and marked by nationality, age, class, gender and combatant status. Part One has at least one chapter for each ‘National Memory’, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Indian and American. Part Two moves on to forgotten captivities. It covers women, children, camp guards, internee experiences upon the end of the war, and local heroines who fought back.

By juxtaposing such a wide variety of captivity experiences – differentiated both by category of captive and by approach - this book transcends place, to become a collection about captivity as a category. It will interest scholars working on the Asia-Pacific War, on captivities in general, and on the individual histories of the countries and groups covered.

Colonial armies were the focal points for some of the most dramatic tensions inherent in Chinese, Japanese and Western clashes with Southeast Asia. The international team of scholars take the reader on a compelling exploration from Ming China to the present day, examining their conquests, management and decolonization.

The journey covers perennial themes such as the recruitment, loyalty, and varied impact of foreign-dominated forces. But it also ventures into unchartered waters by highlighting Asian use of ‘colonial’ forces to dominate other Asians. This sends the reader back in time to the fifteenth century Chinese expansion into Yunnan and Vietnam, and forwards to regional tensions in present-day Indonesia, and post-colonial issues in Malaysia and Singapore.

Drawing these strands together, the book shows how colonial armies must be located within wider patterns of demography, and within bigger systems of imperial security and power – American, British, Chinese, Dutch, French, Indonesian, and Japanese - which in turn helped to shape modern Southeast Asia.

Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia will interest scholars working on low intensity conflict, on the interaction between armed forces and society, on comparative imperialism, and on Southeast Asia.

Colonial armies were the focal points for some of the most dramatic tensions inherent in Chinese, Japanese and Western clashes with Southeast Asia. The international team of scholars take the reader on a compelling exploration from Ming China to the present day, examining their conquests, management and decolonization.

The journey covers perennial themes such as the recruitment, loyalty, and varied impact of foreign-dominated forces. But it also ventures into unchartered waters by highlighting Asian use of ‘colonial’ forces to dominate other Asians. This sends the reader back in time to the fifteenth century Chinese expansion into Yunnan and Vietnam, and forwards to regional tensions in present-day Indonesia, and post-colonial issues in Malaysia and Singapore.

Drawing these strands together, the book shows how colonial armies must be located within wider patterns of demography, and within bigger systems of imperial security and power – American, British, Chinese, Dutch, French, Indonesian, and Japanese - which in turn helped to shape modern Southeast Asia.

Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia will interest scholars working on low intensity conflict, on the interaction between armed forces and society, on comparative imperialism, and on Southeast Asia.