{"product_id":"9780771001970","title":"Prisoners of the Castle","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Spy and the Traitor\u003c\/i\u003e, a definitive and surprising new narrative of one of history's most famous prisons--and the remarkable cast of POWs who tried to relentlessly escape their Nazi captors.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe myth of Colditz, the most infamous prison in history, has stood unchallenged for 70 years: prisoners of war, mustaches firmly set on stiff upper lips, defying the Nazis by tunnelling out of a grim Gothic castle on a German hilltop. Like all legends, that story contains only part of the truth. In Ben Macintyre's brilliant, cliche-smashing new history, he offers a vision of Colditz previously unimagined, a story of much more than an escape, just as the prison's inmates were far more complicated than the cardboard saints depicted in post-war pop culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eColditz was a miniature replica of office-class society at the time, only far stranger: a lethal, high stakes boarding school surrounded by barbed wire, initially containing prisoners of all Allied nations, including Canada, but eventually only Britons and Americans, a heavily guarded cage with its own culture, eccentricities, and internal tensions. In intimate and compelling detail, Macintyre explores what happens to people when they are locked up without committing a crime and with no idea when or if they might be liberated. \u003ci\u003eColditz, \u003c\/i\u003ethen, is a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of snobbery, class conflict, hidden sexuality, bullying, espionage, boredom, insanity, and farce.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith access to declassified archives, private papers, and never-before-seen photos, the author reveals a remarkable cast of characters, previously hidden from history: Indian doctor Birendranath Mazymdar, the only non-white prisoner, whose ill-treatment, hunger-strike and eventual escape reads like fiction; Florimond Duke, America's oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; Christoper Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture escape aids for POWs, from maps hidden in playing cards to a compass secreted inside a walnut; and many others. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBringing together the wartime intrigue of his acclaimed \u003ci\u003eOperation Mincemeat\u003c\/i\u003e and keen psychological portraits of his bestselling true-life spy stories, Macintyre has breathed stunning new life into one of the greatest war stories ever told.","brand":"Ben Macintyre","offers":[{"title":"McClelland \u0026amp; Stewart |  Hardback  |  2022-09-13","offer_id":44151549231359,"sku":"9780771001970","price":36.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/products\/BNCImageAPI_f4a9878f-96b8-4fea-a7f0-839de2609960.jpg?v=1655855307","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9780771001970","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}