""Casting a wide net, this book delivers a scholarly, lucid overview of America's handling of POWs of all stripes: military, civilian, and irregular.... Doyle delves deeply, and military buffs will consider it the definitive treatment."--Publishers Weekly" --
""The moral and historical issues here will be of interest to military students, historians, political scientists, ethicists, and similar scholars.... Strongly recommended."--Library Journal" --
""[The Enemy in Our Hands] is supported by sound scholarship but written in clear, non-pedantic language appropriate to its remarkably insightful and balanced analysis.... A definitive single volume."--Proceedings of the US Naval Institute" --
""[Doyle] examines American actions regarding POWs from George Washington's leadership through both World Wars to the present."--Tucson Citizen" --
""As current events continually shape the context of modern warfare, Doyle's work will assist American consideration of how its treatment of EPWs defines national character."--Franciscan Way" --
""With the very definition of 'torture' subject to partisan politics, [Doyle] is content to objectively relay the precedents that shaped America's treatment of captured enemies without pointing fingers or making sweeping judgments.... What readers are left with is a lively primer illuminating the people, events and prejudices that have shaped the government's handling of prisoners of war and homegrown political dissidents over time."--Miller-McCune" --
""The Enemy in Our Hands is an insightful and balanced work of history, supported by sound scholarship and written in clear, non-pedantic language. It gives the reader a comprehensive review of American foreign policy over six decades, giving a guided tour of America's battles and wars to get to the heart of the treatment of prisoners by the United States and, collaterally, the treatment of American prisoners by other countries."--Naval History" --
""Comprehensive, covering all of the expected prisoner of war populations, as well as the perhaps less expected topics of Loyalist and Quaker prisoners during the American Revolution, Native Americans as POWs, the Spanish American War and the War in the Philippines, domestic internees during World War II, the Phoenix program in Vietnam, and prisoners of the 'War on Terror.'"--Book News" --
""Show[s] the improvised and inconsistent nature of US policies in most past wars….Doyle emphasizes individual experience in the cultural history of war and relies more on personal interviews. He also places heavier emphasis on civilian captives and methods of dealing with wartime disloyalty. Highly recommended."--Choice" --
""Brings together a vast quantity of mostly secondary sources to describe the way in which the United States has treated POW's over approximately 240 years.... Fills a void that has existed for many years."--On Point" --
""The Enemy in Our Hands represents a significant contribution to the study of American military history and superb starting point for scholars interested in America's treatment of its enemies."--Military Review" --
""Contains an informative chapter on the Vietnam War. Doyle shows that with some notable exceptions, Americans in Vietnam treated enemy prisoners in accordance with Geneva Convention rules."--VVA Veteran" --
""Doyle provides excellent context for non-expert readers... the importance of captives to the outcome, and a vivid picture of life in captivity."--Choice" --
""This is a must read, a valuable resource, and an outstanding documentation of prisoners in American wars."--Journal of America's Military Past" --
""A superb study that examines EPWs, interned enemy aliens, and American political prisoners with valuable primary documents and statistics in the extensive appendix. This work will generate debate on the definition of POWs since Doyle has broadened the context to include enemy nationals and political prisoners. By analyzing a wider range of security threats, Doyle is not limited by conventional standards in framing the debate regarding the future development of national policies and international law to deal with non-state combatants." --American Historical Review" --
""The Enemy in Our Hands exmaines American actions regarding POWs from George Washington's leadership in the American Revolution through both World Wars to the present." -- The Lone Star Book Review" --
""A thorough treatment of the subject...highly readable and relevant."--Teaching History" --
Casting a wide net, this book delivers a scholarly, lucid overview of America's handling of POWs of all stripes: military, civilian, and irregular. Historian Doyle (A Prisoner's Duty) emphasizes that uniformed foreign soldiers received humane treatment from the Revolution through the Iraq invasion, peaking during WWII when hundreds of thousands of German troops brought to the U.S. received “relatively benign” treatment. Prisoners fared worse when Americans fought Americans. Loyalists during the Revolution were abused and often killed. Both sides during the Civil War neglected prisoners disgracefully. Historically, irregular fighters enjoyed no protection, but while soldiers rarely objected to mistreating opponents who didn't play fair, civilians were often outraged. In Korea, the screening of prisoners to separate combatants from noncombatants, and their future repatriation, led to prisoner uprisings. No ideologue, Doyle explains that sometimes abuse is unavoidable; at other times it's ineffective, infuriates world opinion, and puts American soldiers at risk for reprisals. Doyle delves deeply, and military buffs will consider it the definitive treatment. 63 photos. (May)
How has America handled the problem of captured enemies? Doyle (history, Franciscan Univ.; Voices from Captivity) unravels the various complex strains of enemy prisoners of war (EPWs) treatment, covering the U.S. military experience from the American Revolution to the present. He relies heavily on the moral high ground, a concept that sounds simple but involves difficult tradeoffs among morality, pragmatism, and situationalism. The moral and historical issues here will be of interest to military students, historians, political scientists, ethicists, and similar scholars. Heavily annotated, with a lengthy bibliography, this strongly recommended title should be read along with Paul Springer's America's Captives.—Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Arms Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, KS
The lesson... is clear: an improvised POW policy for a conflict with an irregular foe leads into a legal and ethical quandry.