No less than the internal combustion engine, the transistor, or the silicon chip, barbed wire is a quintessentially modern invention, a product that has influenced the lives of millions of people across the globe since its invention in the late nineteenth century. Now in paperback, Barbed Wire: A Political History demonstrates that the invention of barbed wire was a major breakthrough with far-reaching consequences. Cheap and mass-produced, barbed wire accomplished what no other product did before it, or has since done more effectively: the control of vast amounts of open space.Razac describes how barbed wire has been employed in the harnessing of nature, brutal mass warfare, political conquest and repression, and genocide. In a narrative that spans the history of the American frontier, the trenches of World War I, the Holocaust, and beyond, Barbed Wire: A Political History looks unflinchingly at a central and fascinating strand of modern life.