Popularized by books and films like Andersonville, The Great Escape, and The Hanoi Hilton and recounted in innumerable postwar memoirs, the POW story holds a special place in American culture. Robert Doyle shows that, though setting and circumstance may change, POW stories share a common structure and are driven by remarkably similar themes. His study illustrates the timelessness of the POW story and shows why it has retained such enormous power to move and instruct us.

Includes maps of: German Prison Camps Where U.S. Prisoners have been Held. Includes bibliographical references (p. 339-358) and index.

Pt. 1. Backgrounds. 1. Soldier Chronicles: The Borders of Military Captivity. 2. The Evolution of POW Status: Establishing Order in Captivity. 3. Captivity Literature: Antecedents and the Context of American Colonial Narratives -- Pt. 2. The Anatomy of Experience. 4. Constructing the Narrative Contour: Time, Domains, Sequence, and Event-Scenarios. 5. Becoming a Prisoner of War: Transformation and Initiation. 6. Prisoners under Guard: Removes and Death Marches. 7. A Sense of Place: The Prison Landscape. 8. The Prisoner's War: Resistance and Torture. 9. The Line of Least Resistance: Assimilation and the Renegade Captive. 10. The Line of More Resistance: Committed Escapers. 11. Final Pathways to Freedom: Release, Repatriation, and the Prisoner's Lament -- Pt. 3. Legacies. 12. Missing: Unknown Soldiers and Unresolved Mysteries. 13. Lessons and Reflections -- Appendix 1: Captivity Narrative Frameworks -- Appendix 2: Prison Ships and Prison Camps in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century America.