The past, violent century has visited widespread suffering upon non-combatants. Australia, the US and Canada - among many others -interned their wartime 'enemy aliens' behind barbed wire in crowded concentration camps. Those targeted were primarily German, Italian and Japanese civilians, including many women and children. They faced summary arrest, their livelihoods and reputations were destroyed, and they were separated from family and friends for lengthy periods. Representing the work of key international scholars in the field, this important volume chronicles the suffering of these unexpected casualties of war in three Allied countries across two world wars. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, the world once more has witnessed the large-scale horror of 'ethnic-cleansing'. Understanding earlier, government-sanctionedcampaigns of racial persecution - in so-called Western democracies - may help avert future disasters.
