The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain’s Most Terrifying Prison

‘Beguiling’ The Times

‘Compelling’ Wall Street Journal

‘A vivid portrait’ Daily Mail

Buried in the history of our most famous jail, a unique story of captivity, violence and race.

British redcoats torch the White House and six thousand American sailors languish in the world’s largest prisoner-of-war camp, Dartmoor. A myriad of races and backgrounds, with some prisoners as young as thirteen.

Known as the ‘hated cage’, Dartmoor wasn’t a place you’d expect to be full of life and invention. Yet prisoners taught each other foreign languages and science, put on plays and staged boxing matches. In daring efforts to escape they lived every prison-break cliche - how to hide the tunnel entrances, what to do with the earth…

Drawing on meticulous research, The Hated Cage documents the extraordinary communities these men built within the prison - and the terrible massacre that destroyed these worlds.

‘This is history as it ought to be - gripping, dynamic, vividly written’ Marcus Rediker