Why have Asian states – colonial and independent – imprisoned people on a massive scale in detention camps? How have detainees experienced the long months and years of captivity? And what does the creation of camps and the segregation of people in them mean for society as a whole? This ambitious book surveys the systems of detention camps set up in Asia from the beginning of the 20th century in The Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Malaya, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Timor, Korea and China.