2. Origins

Abstract

‘Origins’ traces the concentration camp’s origins in 19th- and early 20th-century colonial settings in Australia, the United States, Cuba, South Africa, and German South-West Africa (today Namibia), and in the Armenian genocide at the end of the Ottoman Empire. By studying the early concentration camps, we can understand how and why the camps emerged when they did, and clarify the links and differences between them and the fascist and communist concentration camps of the mid-20th century. European racism, military culture, more rapid forms of communication, and increasingly available print media all contributed to the global diffusion of concentration camp concept, which by the end of World War I became accepted as a technique of rule.