Description
This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe.
As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods.
Chapter
The French Gestapo and Electric Torture
The French Gestapo and Electric Torture
The Decline of Sweating and Stealth
The Decline of Sweating and Stealth
The German Gestapo and Modern Torture
The German Gestapo and Modern Torture
The Search for Electric Torture
The Search for Electric Torture
III: A History of Electric Stealth
III: A History of Electric Stealth
The AC/DC Controversy and the Electric Chair
The AC/DC Controversy and the Electric Chair
The Mystery of Electric Death
The Mystery of Electric Death
The Lost History of the Magneto
The Lost History of the Magneto
French and British Electrotorture after World War II
French and British Electrotorture after World War II
The Colonial Police and Wuillaume’s List
The Colonial Police and Wuillaume’s List
The Triumph of the Gégène
The Triumph of the Gégène
Variation within the French Style
Variation within the French Style
9 Singing the World Electric
9 Singing the World Electric
When Electrotorture Was New
When Electrotorture Was New
Explaining Clean Electrotorture
Explaining Clean Electrotorture
Middle East and North Africa
Middle East and North Africa
10 Prods, Tasers, and Stun Guns
10 Prods, Tasers, and Stun Guns
Magneto Torture in Chicago
Magneto Torture in Chicago
IV: Other Stealth Traditions
IV: Other Stealth Traditions
Remembering Slaves and Sailors
Remembering Slaves and Sailors
13 Water, Sleep, and Spice
13 Water, Sleep, and Spice
Remembering the Inquisition
Remembering the Inquisition
Great and Lesser Stress Traditions
Great and Lesser Stress Traditions
Authoritarian Adaptations
Authoritarian Adaptations
Remembering the Eighteenth Century
Remembering the Eighteenth Century
15 Forced Standing and Other Positions
15 Forced Standing and Other Positions
Positional Tortures in the Communist World
Positional Tortures in the Communist World
Positional Tortures in the Non-Communist World
Positional Tortures in the Non-Communist World
The Universal Distributor Hypothesis Revisited
The Universal Distributor Hypothesis Revisited
Remembering the Hooded Men
Remembering the Hooded Men
Remembering the Grunts and the Cops
Remembering the Grunts and the Cops
17 Old and New Restraints
17 Old and New Restraints
Bucking (the Parrot’s Perch)
Bucking (the Parrot’s Perch)
Remembering the Allied POWs
Remembering the Allied POWs
The CIA and Sensory Deprivation Boxes
The CIA and Sensory Deprivation Boxes
Principles and Guinea Pigs
Principles and Guinea Pigs
The Decline of Pharmacological Torture
The Decline of Pharmacological Torture
Soviet Pharmacological Torture
Soviet Pharmacological Torture
Remembering the Prison Doctors
Remembering the Prison Doctors
20 Supply and Demand for Clean Torture
20 Supply and Demand for Clean Torture
The Priority of Public Monitoring
The Priority of Public Monitoring
Variations among and within States
Variations among and within States
National Styles of Stealth Torture
National Styles of Stealth Torture
The Strength of Low Technology
The Strength of Low Technology
Disciplinary Interventions
Disciplinary Interventions
Can Torture Be Scientific?
Can Torture Be Scientific?
Can Torture Be Restrained?
Can Torture Be Restrained?
Can Torture Be Professionally Conducted?
Can Torture Be Professionally Conducted?
Is Anything Better Than Nothing?
Is Anything Better Than Nothing?
How Well Do Interrogators Spot the Truth?
How Well Do Interrogators Spot the Truth?
How Well Do Cooperative Prisoners Remember?
How Well Do Cooperative Prisoners Remember?
How Good Is the Intelligence Overall?
How Good Is the Intelligence Overall?
Remembering the Questions
Remembering the Questions
22 What the Apologists Say
22 What the Apologists Say
Remembering the Battle of Algiers
Remembering the Battle of Algiers
Information in the Battle of Algiers
Information in the Battle of Algiers
French Interrogation Units
French Interrogation Units
Coerced Information in the Algerian War
Coerced Information in the Algerian War
Saving Innocents, Losing Wars
Saving Innocents, Losing Wars
Stories from the Resistance
Stories from the Resistance
The Interrogation of Al Qaeda
The Interrogation of Al Qaeda
Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
Testimonial Literature from Other Conflicts
Testimonial Literature from Other Conflicts
23 Why Governments Don’t Learn
23 Why Governments Don’t Learn
How Knowledge Does Not Accumulate
How Knowledge Does Not Accumulate
How Knowledge Is Not Analyzed
How Knowledge Is Not Analyzed
How Torture Warrants Might Help
How Torture Warrants Might Help
Variations in Regulative Failure
Variations in Regulative Failure
Stealth and the Regulation of Torture
Stealth and the Regulation of Torture
How Knowledge Does Not Matter
How Knowledge Does Not Matter
24 The Great Age of Torture in Modern Memory
24 The Great Age of Torture in Modern Memory
The Architecture of Amnesia
The Architecture of Amnesia
A: A List of Clean Tortures
A: A List of Clean Tortures
C: Organization and Explanations
C: Organization and Explanations
D: A Note on Sources for American Torture during the Vietnam War
D: A Note on Sources for American Torture during the Vietnam War
Torture and Democracy
：Torture and Democracy
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