"No less than the internal combustion engine, the transistor, or the silicon chip, barbed wire is the quintessentially modern invention. Cheap and mass produced, it accomplished what no other product did before, or has since done so effectively: the control of space. Few technologies did more to usher in the hallmarks of the modern era: the harnessing of nature, brutal mass warfare, political conquest and repression, and genocide.".

"With this work of history - illustrated with rare photographs from European and American archives - Olivier Razac uncovers the hidden history of barbed wire." "In a narrative that spans the history of the American frontier, the trenches of World War I, the Holocaust and beyond, Barbed Wire looks unflinchingly at a central and fascinating thread of modern life."--BOOK JACKET.