The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization through Medieval Times to the Present [Paperback]

Jean Kellaway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2002

A full-color history of the cruel and violent ways in which humans have meted out punishment--from early civilizations to the present.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Throughout history, cultures around the world have found justice for the most extreme crimes by condemning the guilty to death. Retribution has been sought by many methods, from beheading, garroting, entombment, and burning to modern means such as electrocution and lethal injection. For the infliction of torturous pain, even more ingenious devices have been employed. While torture has usually been carried out behind closed doors, it is only recently that executions have ceased to be a popular public spectacle.
The History of Torture and Execution examines these fascinating but grisly subjects by time, region, and method. Beginning with the often crude methods of meting out justice used by early and first-millennium civilizations, and evolving from the sadistic tools of the medieval age to the modern search for humane execution methods, controversial issues are authoritatively covered. More than 180 black-and-white and color images illustrate the many and varied engines of this final punishment, and the inclusion of stories told by the victims themselves gives chilling insight into the horrors faced by prisoners condemned to die for their crimes.

About the Author

KAREN FARRINGTON is a former journalist who has contributed to numerous publications on military history. She has also written extensively on assassinations, natural disasters, and religion. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585746223
• ISBN-13: 978-1585746224
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,107,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must for fans of corporal punishment, May 11, 2001

By 

Lance Link (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The History of Torture and Execution (Hardcover)

One of the best in-print works on the history of torture and basic human nastiness. The focus with this book has been on the visual, and there is at least one picture on every page. The authors are a little short on the how-to info, but anybody with the time and the inclination can figure out the details pretty easily.

I also found it interesting that the authors spend the last 52 pages of this work---over a quarter of its 192 pages---focused on the dilemas of torture and execution in modern society. While entirely worthy of philosophical discussion, contemporary cruelty pales in comparison to that of previous societies, and as such is less interesting.

Visually, the only book currently available that can compete is Michael Kerrigan's The Instruments of Torture. Since Kerrigan's book is also stronger on the verbal side of things, I'd recommend that as a starting point for those with an interest in the subject. Which isn't to say you shouldn't get this book (4 stars, baby), just that there is a better work out there that you should get first.

For those in search of more detailed verbal accounts of torture techniques, I highly recommend Daniel Mannix's exemplary work, The History of Torture. Or, if you can find a copy, Fuad Ramses' masterwork Ancient Weird Religious Rituals, which goes into great detail about Old World cruelties such as the Blood Feast.

35 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Time/Life Books Guide to State-Sponsored Barbarity, January 20, 2001

By 

Jeffrey A. Veyera "Jeff Veyera" (Matthews, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History of Torture and Execution (Hardcover)

I must confess that I received and read "The History of Torture and Execution" because I failed to send in my response card in time to a book club. I have at best only a mild interest in the ingenious ways which man has developed to inflict pain and suffering on his fellow man.

Jean Kellaway chooses the time-honored Time/Life books approach to her subject---lots of big color pictures, a couple of paragraphs of execrable prose on her subject, and the requisite coda denouncing the practices she recounts with ready glee.

More disturbing to me than the numerous images of broken and burning victims were the numerous errors Kellaway makes in covering the various torture methods employed down through the ages. She describes the knout employed by Peter the Great's thugs as being a type of flogging. This is true, but the truly hideous aspect of the application of the knout was that the victim was simultaneously roasted over a fire. Thus, the wounds inflicted by the knout were exposed to flame, increasing the agony of the victim tenfold.

She relays the old canard about Marie Antoinette's responding to the Paris mob's cries for bread with "Let them eat cake"; this has been discredited far too many times to recall by professional historians not given to producing picture books on torture.

She is curiously soft on the crimes of Communists, a lot well known for their hell-spawned creativity in the art of cruelty. At one point, she actually justifies the Stalinist gulags (survival rate-10 percent) by pointing out that Stalin himself did time in a czarist camp and that this was the way he chose to industrialize Russia. Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" tells a different story.

In short, this book is a complete travesty and I suspect no one will be stupid enough to purchase it outright. I intend to send my copy to Dr. Kevorkian; I'm certain the numerous depictions of sadism will adorn his cell marvelously.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great idea but bad result, April 18, 2006

By 

Stefan Isaksson "www.stefanisaksson.se" (Malmoe, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization through Medieval Times to the Present (Paperback)

This is not a fun book to read. Absolutely not.

Because it shows the human race from its very worst sides, our bizarre creativity and unbelievably superior ingenuity when it comes to figuring out new ways and methods to torture and kill our fellow man. The human being is capable of amazing achievements - of course we all know that - but we're just as skilled in being evil as we are in being good, and Kellaway's book shows the reader a part of human nature that many people probably will have great difficulties accepting.

It's actually quite mind-boggling how brutal man can be, but there's no point ignoring reality, and no matter how disturbing the book might be; its content is still of utmost importance, and, well, it doesn't get a whole lot easier to deal with knowing that many of the barbaric practices are still being carried out in this day and age. Studying the human race without including its evil sides is completely pointless, and hopefully The History of Torture and Execution will make people think a little more about this world and its people. These thoughts might be both dark and negative, but then again, isn't that sometimes the exact kind of thoughts needed for change to occur?

However, there is more or less no depth whatsoever in this book. Every page has large and impressive illustrations and photographs, and if these images had been removed the result would have been a book with extremely few pages. Sure, Kellaway makes sure to include as much human suffering as possible on each page and in each chapter, but not once is the reader offered any sort of depth or real perspective, and is quite irritating, to say the least. Human behavior and belief systems are complicated matters, and there are more sides to even the goriest of stories, but you'll have to look elsewhere if you're interested in these sides.

For instance, the horrific ethnic cleansing that have taken place in Africa during the last few years are mentioned in two (2) sentences, and this is simply embarrassing. The lack of depth and extremely selective content really does lower the end result, and no, unfortunately this is not a well-written book at all. Regardless of its highly important content.