Shantung Compound

By Langdon Gilkey

This vivid diary of life in a Japanese internment camp during World War II examines the moral challenges encountered in conditions of confinement and deprivation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Dec 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9780062272331

Langdon Gilkey

Langdon Gilkey was a young American teacher at Yenching University near Peking, China, when the Japanese military under wartime pressure rounded up all foreigners into an internment camp. Two and a half years later they were released. Shantung Compound is based on a journal Dr. Gilkey kept during his imprisonment.

Reviews for Shantung Compound

[Joe Oaster · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An exceptional book speaking of both the social/psychological as well as religious/moral/ethics of camp life. A great read to understand how people lived and survived this camp. Now this camp was not a prisoner camp so the people there were treated much more humanely compared to other Japanese camps. But Gilkey writes and details the experiences of how the camp is structured, maintained, order, justice is handled among the people there. Great read.

[autumnesf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An interesting book about whites interned in a camp in China during the China/Japanese war. Mostly about the author's thoughts on man and how he react's, etc. This was not a brutal compound and they had it fairly easy. An interesting read.

[seoulful · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The author, a young American teacher in China, is caught up into a large group of foreign internees of the Japanese during WWII and placed in a camp for a period of 2 1/2 years. Foreigners of every imaginable walk in life are placed together in the increasing pressure cooker of hunger, hopelessness, boredom and fear. An excellent sociological reflection on what happens to people under extreme conditions.