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From Captives on the Frontier to Saving the World

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Abstract

Historically the captivity narrative served as an important metaphor for the risks faced by white settlers in the midst of menacing and barbaric savages. The Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 was the last captivity story that lived up to its seventeenth-century counterparts, and this chapter examines its features as well as its contradictions. Subsequent captivity dramas foisted the older model onto humanitarian wars designed to save helpless victims, particularly children, from the savagery of ruthless governments.

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  1. Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA, USA

    Catherine V. Scott

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Scott, C.V. (2018). From Captives on the Frontier to Saving the World. In: Neoliberalism and U.S. Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71383-0_3

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