Barbed Wire

<DIV>No less than the internal combustion engine the transistor or the silicon chip barbed wire is a quintessentially modern invention a product that has influenced the lives of millions of people across the globe since its invention in the late nineteenth century. Now in paperback <EM>Barbed Wire: A Political History</EM> demonstrates that the invention of barbed wire was a major breakthrough with far-reaching consequences. Cheap and mass-produced barbed wire accomplished what no other product did before it or has since done more effectively: the control of vast amounts of open space.<BR><BR>Razac describes how barbed wire has been employed in the harnessing of nature brutal mass warfare political conquest and repression and genocide. In a narrative that spans the history of the American frontier the trenches of World War I the Holocaust and beyond <EM>Barbed Wire: A Political History</EM> looks unflinchingly at a central and fascinating strand of modern life.</DIV>