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The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain’s Most Terrifying Prison
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69
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
44/100Critics
94/100Scholars
Author:
Nicholas Guyatt
Publisher:
Basic Books
Date:
April 5, 2022
A British professor of American history reveals the never-before-told story of a doomed British prison and the massacre of its American prisoners of the War of 1812.
What The Reviewers Say
... [a] beguiling new history.
... compelling and compassionate.
Guyatt’s account stretches across fourteen chapters – easily the most comprehensive study to date (and probably for quite a long while). Much of the book is context. American prisoners do not begin arriving at Dartmoor until the fourth chapter. In these initial chapters, Guyatt offers a hasty, though not oversimplified, summary of the Anglo–American tensions that erupted into war in 1812, and a short history of the prison.
As a result of the emphasis on the prison and the prisoners, especially and, in particular, the racial aspect, critically speaking, the subtitle of this book is somewhat of a misnomer. Indeed, it is a bit puzzling that the individual parts that divide the book are all titled with respect to King Dick, no matter the material discussed in the individual chapters of each part.
