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The concept of a political prisoner is important for all movements that oppose or wish to bring down dictatorships and oppressive systems. Every political prisoner is at times an object of respect and disdain; he is both esteemed and stigmatized. Solzhenitsyn wrote that prison saved him from the disgrace of collaborating with a totalitarian regime. That may well be, but we should not wish anyone this way of saving his soul. Padraic Kenney's book describes the many ambiguities of being a political prisoner and of being perceived as one. It is sure to invite impassioned responses from past, present, and future political prisoners. --Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza Modernity may have been emancipatory but, as Padraic Kenney shows in this fascinating and wide-ranging study, it also gave birth to a new kind of 'political' imprisonment. Taking the reader inside the prison and vividly documenting both the instances of repression and spaces for manoeuvre that the experience of incarceration involves, Kenney has produced one of the most original studies of modern politics in years. From Eastern Europe to South Africa and from Irish rebels to contemporary terrorists, Dance in Chains also shows how to connect globe-spanning world history with finely textured social history. A triumph. --Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Extremely informative, comprehensive, detailed, and extremely well-written. In the contemporary world of inter- and intra-state conflicts, imprisonment, torture, and the new state language of 'extraordinary rendition' (read kidnap and abduction) which seeks to obscure what is really happening on the ground, it is all the more important that we understand how the political prisoner has been defined/redefined and, most importantly, treated and mistreated over time. This book will be of immense value to the scholar of prison studies but equally to the lay person who seeks to find some understanding of how and why political imprisonment evolved over the past century and more and how, unfortunately, it will remain with us for some time to come. --Laurence McKeown, author of Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh, 1972 -2000 If Foucault's Discipline and Punish described how disciplinary consciousness appeared in early 19th century Europe, Kenney's Dance in Chains describes how a new subjectivity as a political prisoner emerged as a global phenomenon in the 20th century. Political prisoners defined their subjectivity not by protesting the prison but by using it to shape themselves into new political agents. Kenney has written a critical genealogy against which we can understand how being a political prisoner exploded into popular consciousness and human rights discourse, and even how incarceration came to be, for many, a prerequisite for political activity itself. --Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy

The concept of a political prisoner is important for all movements that oppose or wish to bring down dictatorships and oppressive systems. Every political prisoner is at times an object of respect and disdain; he is both esteemed and stigmatized. Solzhenitsyn wrote that prison saved him from the disgrace of collaborating with a totalitarian regime. That may well be, but we should not wish anyone this way of saving his soul. Padraic Kenney's book describes the many ambiguities of being a political prisoner and of being perceived as one. It is sure to invite impassioned responses from past, present, and future political prisoners. --Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza Modernity may have been emancipatory but, as Padraic Kenney shows in this fascinating and wide-ranging study, it also gave birth to a new kind of 'political' imprisonment. Taking the reader inside the prison and vividly documenting both the instances of repression and spaces for maneuver that the experience of incarceration involves, Kenney has produced one of the most original studies of modern politics in years. From Eastern Europe to South Africa and from Irish rebels to contemporary terrorists, Dance in Chains also shows how to connect globe-spanning world history with finely textured social history. A triumph. --Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Extremely informative, comprehensive, detailed, and extremely well-written. In the contemporary world of inter- and intra-state conflicts, imprisonment, torture, and the new state language of 'extraordinary rendition' (read kidnap and abduction) which seeks to obscure what is really happening on the ground, it is all the more important that we understand how the political prisoner has been defined/redefined and, most importantly, treated and mistreated over time. This book will be of immense value to the scholar of prison studies but equally to the lay person who seeks to find some understanding of how and why political imprisonment evolved over the past century and more and how, unfortunately, it will remain with us for some time to come. --Laurence McKeown, author of Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh, 1972 -2000 If Foucault's Discipline and Punish described how disciplinary consciousness appeared in early 19th century Europe, Kenney's Dance in Chains describes how a new subjectivity as a political prisoner emerged as a global phenomenon in the 20th century. Political prisoners defined their subjectivity not by protesting the prison but by using it to shape themselves into new political agents. Kenney has written a critical genealogy against which we can understand how being a political prisoner exploded into popular consciousness and human rights discourse, and even how incarceration came to be, for many, a prerequisite for political activity itself. --Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy

Dance in Chains provides a good start into the confrontation with the 'political prison' in the 20th century. Kenney's great achievement is to solve the issue of a specific case and the history of a single regime and to understand it as a superordinate phenomenon in the 20th century. The study invites to further thinking and critical questioning of a problem, which, as the author also shows, has not lost its relevance. --Lucia Herrmann, H-Soz-Kult The concept of a political prisoner is important for all movements that oppose or wish to bring down dictatorships and oppressive systems. Every political prisoner is at times an object of respect and disdain; he is both esteemed and stigmatized. Solzhenitsyn wrote that prison saved him from the disgrace of collaborating with a totalitarian regime. That may well be, but we should not wish anyone this way of saving his soul. Padraic Kenney's book describes the many ambiguities of being a political prisoner and of being perceived as one. It is sure to invite impassioned responses from past, present, and future political prisoners. --Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza Modernity may have been emancipatory but, as Padraic Kenney shows in this fascinating and wide-ranging study, it also gave birth to a new kind of 'political' imprisonment. Taking the reader inside the prison and vividly documenting both the instances of repression and spaces for maneuver that the experience of incarceration involves, Kenney has produced one of the most original studies of modern politics in years. From Eastern Europe to South Africa and from Irish rebels to contemporary terrorists, Dance in Chains also shows how to connect globe-spanning world history with finely textured social history. A triumph. --Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Extremely informative, comprehensive, detailed, and extremely well-written. In the contemporary world of inter- and intra-state conflicts, imprisonment, torture, and the new state language of 'extraordinary rendition' (read kidnap and abduction) which seeks to obscure what is really happening on the ground, it is all the more important that we understand how the political prisoner has been defined/redefined and, most importantly, treated and mistreated over time. This book will be of immense value to the scholar of prison studies but equally to the lay person who seeks to find some understanding of how and why political imprisonment evolved over the past century and more and how, unfortunately, it will remain with us for some time to come. --Laurence McKeown, author of Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh, 1972 -2000 If Foucault's Discipline and Punish described how disciplinary consciousness appeared in early 19th century Europe, Kenney's Dance in Chains describes how a new subjectivity as a political prisoner emerged as a global phenomenon in the 20th century. Political prisoners defined their subjectivity not by protesting the prison but by using it to shape themselves into new political agents. Kenney has written a critical genealogy against which we can understand how being a political prisoner exploded into popular consciousness and human rights discourse, and even how incarceration came to be, for many, a prerequisite for political activity itself. --Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy The concept of a political prisoner is important for all movements that oppose or wish to bring down dictatorships and oppressive systems. Every political prisoner is at times an object of respect and disdain; he is both esteemed and stigmatized. Solzhenitsyn wrote that prison saved him from the disgrace of collaborating with a totalitarian regime. That may well be, but we should not wish anyone this way of saving his soul. Padraic Kenney's book describes the many ambiguities of being a political prisoner and of being perceived as one. It is sure to invite impassioned responses from past, present, and future political prisoners. --Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza Modernity may have been emancipatory but, as Padraic Kenney shows in this fascinating and wide-ranging study, it also gave birth to a new kind of 'political' imprisonment. Taking the reader inside the prison and vividly documenting both the instances of repression and spaces for maneuver that the experience of incarceration involves, Kenney has produced one of the most original studies of modern politics in years. From Eastern Europe to South Africa and from Irish rebels to contemporary terrorists, Dance in Chains also shows how to connect globe-spanning world history with finely textured social history. A triumph. --Samuel Moyn, author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History Extremely informative, comprehensive, detailed, and extremely well-written. In the contemporary world of inter- and intra-state conflicts, imprisonment, torture, and the new state language of 'extraordinary rendition' (read kidnap and abduction) which seeks to obscure what is really happening on the ground, it is all the more important that we understand how the political prisoner has been defined/redefined and, most importantly, treated and mistreated over time. This book will be of immense value to the scholar of prison studies but equally to the lay person who seeks to find some understanding of how and why political imprisonment evolved over the past century and more and how, unfortunately, it will remain with us for some time to come. --Laurence McKeown, author of Out of Time: Irish Republican Prisoners Long Kesh, 1972 -2000 If Foucault's Discipline and Punish described how disciplinary consciousness appeared in early 19th century Europe, Kenney's Dance in Chains describes how a new subjectivity as a political prisoner emerged as a global phenomenon in the 20th century. Political prisoners defined their subjectivity not by protesting the prison but by using it to shape themselves into new political agents. Kenney has written a critical genealogy against which we can understand how being a political prisoner exploded into popular consciousness and human rights discourse, and even how incarceration came to be, for many, a prerequisite for political activity itself. --Darius Rejali, author of Torture and Democracy

Author Information

Padraic Kenney is Professor of History and International Studies at Indiana University.  He is the author of The Burdens of Freedom: Eastern Europe since 1989, A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe, 1989, and Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945-1950.  He has served as president of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.

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