Expansion : the American West and the invention of barbed wire. Unpacking the Louisiana Purchase ; How to fence a cow ; How to fence the world -- Confrontation : barbed wire on the battlefield. Conquest by iron ; Crisis of the horse ; Perfection of the obstacle ; The obstacle triumphant -- Containment : barbed wire in the concentration camps. The control of nations ; Enemy people ; Tractors to Ukraine ; Trains to Auschwitz
Summary
"In this original book, historian and philosopher Reviel Netz explores the development of a controlling and pain-inducing technology - barbed wire. Surveying its development from 1874 to 1954, Netz describes its use to control cattle during the colonization of the American West and to control people in Nazi concentration camps and the Russian Gulag. Physical control over space was no longer symbolic after 1874"--Jacket
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-259) and index
