RaveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Guyatt’s account stretches across fourteen chapters – easily the most comprehensive study to date (and probably for quite a long while). Much of the book is context. American prisoners do not begin arriving at Dartmoor until the fourth chapter. In these initial chapters, Guyatt offers a hasty, though not oversimplified, summary of the Anglo–American tensions that erupted into war in 1812, and a short history of the prison ... The book is at its best once the focus shifts to the prisoners’ experiences, when it becomes a model microhistory. Guyatt does not rely exclusively on the handful of prisoners’ written accounts, which are invariably conflicting and sometimes written decades later. Sailors are, after all, known for tall tales. Along with government and personal correspondence, Guyatt carefully employs prison records to balance the embellished personal narratives. The result is a vivid reconstruction of the experiences of the men who endured Dartmoor, as well as the hundreds who did not survive, dying from disease even before the bloody riot ... Race is an important part of the story of Dartmoor, and Guyatt is right to emphasize it ... The book regularly revisits King Dick and, while the attempt to weave him into the story as a central figure sometimes feels strained, the account is enriched by the story of this once powerful leader who later died homeless in Boston ... Guyatt’s meticulous reconstruction and vivid telling of these conditions make The Hated Cage a compelling story of human indifference, cruelty and endurance.
