Life And Death In Captivity

In Life and Death in Captivity, Geoffrey P. R. Wallace explores the profound differences in the ways captives are treated during armed conflict. Wallace focuses on the dual role played by regime type and the nature of the conflict in determining whether captor states opt for brutality or mercy.

Why are prisoners horribly abused in some wars but humanely cared for in others? In Life and Death in Captivity, Geoffrey P. R. Wallace explores the profound differences in the ways captives are treated during armed conflict. Wallace focuses on the dual role played by regime type and the nature of the conflict in determining whether captor states opt for brutality or mercy. Integrating original data on prisoner treatment during the last century of interstate warfare with in-depth historical cases, Wallace demonstrates how domestic constraints and external incentives shape the fate of captured enemy combatants. Both Russia and Japan, for example, treated prisoners very differently in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 and in World War II; the behavior of any given country is liable to vary from conflict to conflict and even within the same war.Democracies may be more likely to treat their captives humanely, yet this benevolence is rooted less in liberal norms of nonviolence than in concerns over public accountability. When such concerns are weak or absent, democracies are equally capable of brutal conduct toward captives. In conflicts that devolve into protracted fighting, belligerents may inflict violence against captives as part of a strategy of exploitation and to coerce the adversary into submission. When territory is at stake, prisoners are further at risk of cruel treatment as their captors seek to permanently remove the most threatening sources of opposition within newly conquered lands. By combining a rigorous strategic approach with a wide-ranging body of evidence, Wallace offers a vital contribution to the study of political violence and wartime conduct.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Evidence of Harm and Animal Factory—a groundbreaking scientific thriller that exposes the dark side of SeaWorld, America's most beloved marine mammal park Death at SeaWorld centers on the battle with the multimillion-dollar marine park industry over the controversial and even lethal ramifications of keeping killer whales in captivity. Following the story of marine biologist and animal advocate at the Humane Society of the US, Naomi Rose, Kirby tells the gripping story of the two-decade fight against PR-savvy SeaWorld, which came to a head with the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Kirby puts that horrific animal-on-human attack in context. Brancheau's death was the most publicized among several brutal attacks that have occurred at Sea World and other marine mammal theme parks. Death at SeaWorld introduces real people taking part in this debate, from former trainers turned animal rights activists to the men and women that champion SeaWorld and the captivity of whales. In section two the orcas act out. And as the story progresses and orca attacks on trainers become increasingly violent, the warnings of Naomi Rose and other scientists fall on deaf ears, only to be realized with the death of Dawn Brancheau. Finally he covers the media backlash, the eyewitnesses who come forward to challenge SeaWorld's glossy image, and the groundbreaking OSHA case that challenges the very idea of keeping killer whales in captivity and may spell the end of having trainers in the water with the ocean's top predators.

A suspected informer is found dead in a collapsed escape tunnel in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy. So as to protect the tunnel the prisoners decide to move the body. But then the fascist captors declare the death to be murder and determine to execute the officer they suspect. It therefore becomes a race against time to find the true culprit.

The next installment in the British Library Crime Classics series Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder "Any book by Michael Gilbert is a treat" --Daily Telegraph A man is found dead in an escape tunnel beneath an Italian prisoner-of-war camp. Did he die in an accidental collapse--or was this murder? Captain Henry 'Cuckoo' Goyles, master tunneller and amateur detective, takes up the case. This classic locked-room mystery with a closed circle of suspects is woven together with a thrilling story of escape from the camp, as the Second World War nears its endgame and the British prisoners prepare to flee into the Italian countryside. Perfect for readers of Sophie Hannah and Louise Penny

A literary sensation in Hungary, Gyorgy Spiro's Captivity is set in the tumultuous first century A.D., between the year of Christ's death and the outbreak of the Jewish War. It follows the adventures of the feeble-bodied, bookish Uri, a young Roman Jew. Frustrated with his hapless son, Uri's father sends the young man to the Holy Land to regain the family's prestige. In Jerusalem, Uri is imprisoned by Herod and meets two thieves and (perhaps) Jesus before their crucifixion. Later he has an awakening in cosmopolitan Alexandria, and then returns home to an unexpected inheritance.