The War of 1812 – the last time Britain and America went to war with each other.

British redcoats torch the White House and six thousand American sailors languish in the world's largest prisoner-of-war camp, Dartmoor. A myriad of races and backgrounds, with some prisoners as young as thirteen.

Known as the ‘hated cage', Dartmoor wasn't a place you'd expect to be full of life and invention. Yet prisoners taught each other foreign languages and science, put on plays and staged boxing matches. In daring efforts to escape they lived every prison-break cliché – how to hide the tunnel entrances, what to do with the earth… Drawing on meticulous research, The Hated Cage documents the extraordinary communities these men built within the prison – and the terrible massacre that destroyed these worlds.