Concentration Camps: A Global History

Prof Alan Kramer in conversation with Dr Patrick Houlihan (TCD)as part of the Centre for International History Seminar Series.

Why were concentration camps were created, and how did they shape the twentieth century? In popular perception they are synonymous with genocide—racial extermination. Yet the great majority were not sites of genocide. Nor were they a Nazi invention. They were a global and transnational phenomenon, emerging around 1900 on the colonial periphery, revived during the First World War, and applied in the inter-war years using modern techniques of mass mobilization and bureaucratic power. Camps served political repression under authoritarian dictatorships, and were also instruments for empire-building and utopian schemes of social transformation. Yet they have existed under a variety of regimes, including democracies, imperial Japan, and Communist China. Concentration camps are thus part of modern civilization, both in memory culture and in reality.

The Centre for International History draws on the burgeoning insights of scholars in the past few decades that history does not stop at the border of the nation-state.  International history explores comparative approaches and uncovers transnational flows of commerce, politics, culture, and ideas. The Centre's research seminars and public events will display these methods while examining historical developments across the globe especially in the late modern period.

Please indicate if you have any access requirements, such as ISL/English interpreting, so that we can facilitate you in attending this event. Contact:gearyd@tcd.ie