Thomas James’s book is a lively and important piece of social history. It makes a contribution to the literature on prejudice and race relations as well as the history of education. The contradiction of educators trying to conduct ‘democratic’ education in a concentration camp is interesting—curious in a sad way.
-- Carl F. Kaestle, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Thomas James’s Exile Within brilliantly interprets schooling in the camps that imprisoned Japanese families. But more, he shows that ‘democratic education’ behind barbed wire was not so anomalous as it might at first appear; it had its precedents and might have its successors. James teaches us, then, not only about that shameful episode but also about the larger pathology, both of ideology and practice, within which it occurred.
-- David Tyack, Stanford University