Prisoners Without Trial: Japanese Americans in World War II
Roger Daniels
9780809078967
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 2004
Paperback: New
Prisoners Without Trail is part of Hill and Wang's Critical Issues Series and well established on college reading lists.
This book presents a concise introduction to a shameful chapter in American history: the incarceration of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.
With a revised final chapter and expanded recommended readings, Roger Daniels's updated edition examines a tragic event in our nation's past and thoughtfully asks if it could happen again.
In The News
“This is a succinct synthesis of the latest scholarship on Japanese American relocation during the Second World War, interpreted by the leading historian of the subject. Daniels's account is broadly conceived, yet briefly executed. It is exciting to read, and shocking.” --Robert Allen Skotheim, president, The Huntington
“Distilled from three decades of meticulous research and nuanced reflection by the foremost expert in Japanese American history. This is the most succinct and masterful synthesis available of the ordeal Japanese Americans suffered during World War II.” --Sucheng Chan, University of California at Santa Barbara
“The arbitrary internment of Japanese Americans was one of the most shameful episodes of our history. And nobody knows the subject better than Roger Daniels. He writes with authority and clarity. His book should be read by everyone concerned with our civil liberties.” --Stanley Karnow
About the author
Roger Daniels (1927-2022) was the chair the University of Cincinnati’s Department of History, where he remained until his retirement in 2002. He was a historian who was dedicated to public advocacy. In 1967, Daniels and sociologist Harry Kitano organized at UCLA the first academic conference on Japanese Americans’ wartime experiences. The two then produced another with historian Sandra Taylor in Salt Lake City in 1983, which led to the edited volume Japanese Americans, from Relocation to Redress (Univ. of Utah Press, 1986). During the redress movement, Roger testified before multiple congressional hearings in support of financial compensation for Japanese Americans.
See Discover Nikkei article by Barbara Takei.