The Society of Prisoners: Anglo-French Wars and Incarceration in the Eighteenth Century - Paperback

by Renaud Morieux (Author)

In the eighteenth century, as wars between Britain, France, and their allies raged across the world, hundreds of thousands of people were captured, detained, or exchanged. They were shipped across oceans, marched across continents, or held in an indeterminate limbo. The Society of Prisoners challenges us to rethink the paradoxes of the prisoner of war, defined at once as an enemy and as a fellow human being whose life must be spared.

Renaud Morieux redefines how we understand the notion of what a prisoner of war was before international legal and social conventions were introduced - in the eighteenth century, the distinction between a prisoner of war, a hostage, a criminal, and a slave was not always clear-cut. Morieux then uses war captivity as a lens through which to observe the eighteenth-century state, how it transformed itself, and why it endured. In so doing, he invites the reader to trace the history of the prisoners via a journey between Britain, France, the West Indies, and St Helena.

Author Biography

Renaud Morieux, Professor of British and European History, University of Cambridge, Pembroke College

Renaud Morieux has been a lecturer in British history at Cambridge since 2011, before which he lectured in modern history at Lille for five years. He is Professor of British and European History at Pembroke College, Cambridge. His career, spanning the Channel, exemplifies his attempts to cross the intellectual and academic borders between France and Britain.