The History of Torture (Sutton History Classics) [Paperback]

It took me a while to get through Mannix's book, since I often read it in small blocks. Too much of this sort of information at once can be an almost nauseating experience - and I'm not particularly squeamish. However, after finishing it I found it to be a pretty rewarding venture that really gets you thinking about some important philosophical and historical concepts. I'll come back to this.

Mannix writes rather tersely and emotionally detached about the most unthinkable acts of humankind. He covers specific torture devices - what they were and how they were used - and then often recounts several specific situations when the device was used and what the results were. Every society and age has "contributed" something to the legacy of torture and Mannix leaves nobody out. Whether it's the Aztecs who once sacrificed 70,000 people in one event, to the Australian penal colonies, he not only covers it but also relates the differences and similarities between the devices and methods employed. Just some of the groups covered are the Native Americans, the Nazis, the Europeans throughout every century, Africans, South Americans, the North American colonies, the Inquisition, modern-day police in every major country, Asians of every era and dynasty, Vikings, African-American slaves, and the witch trials. He makes careful notes of when a torture device was reused or modified in some way from society to society.

The specific stories he relates are always shocking and beyond belief, yet they are well-documented accounts. The ingenuity of torturers is truly staggering, rivaling some of the greatest inventors of all time. How these monsters came to devote enough of their minds and time to devising these horrible instruments is unthinkable. Yet Mannix explores every last deep, dark corner of these demented minds.

There are several areas of the humanities that Mannix touches upon, sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently. In general he tries to stick to the facts and avoid inserting his opinion. On occasion, however, he can't resist and shows his hand with a carefully written sentence or a colorful adverb. One area that he didn't specifically touch upon that got me thinking a great deal, is that of the reparations forced on certain social groups by other social groups for past crimes. Various races, even in America, consider the atrocities enacted on their race to be the worst in humankind's history. Reading Mannix's book will show that this is the result of a very narrow and uninformed view of history. The brutal decimation of hundreds of thousands of Aztecs, the mass executions of nearly two million people by Ghengis Khan, the horrible slave trades of the ancient Romans, the demented torturings of the Inquisition - in modern times only the atrocities of Hitler seem to directly compare to these events. While Mannix deftly avoids opinions for most of the book, he does close his work with a chapter on corporeal punishment and its effectiveness as a deterrent of crime. This chapter was remarkably well-written and presents thought-out arguments presenting both sides of the debate. He gives no-nonsense, logical examples of why in some cases corporeal punishment can never work, and in other cases where it clearly has proven effective. It was a surprisingly well-done cap to his book. After reading hundreds of pages of what the worst of humankind is capable of, it helped put things in perspective.

As a book, it could be a little tighter. There is no logical flow from chapter to chapter, nor is there an index. As a result it sometimes feels as though Mannix is repeating himself, and you are a little lost as to the overall historical context of the situation. The chapters are also not titled, nor is there an index, so there is no easy way to go to a specific era or torture device you want to research.

This book also scared me slightly, since it showed me just what human beings are capable of doing to each other. The Romans killed each other for sport. They would crucify slaves in the Coliseum and then gamble on who would die first, die last, etc. There was a time when humans - the same specie that lives today - considered this entertainment. To be honest, this is one of the reasons why Reality TV bothers me so much. Aside from putting completely talentless people on television, it also harkens back to the days when blood-thirsty fans screamed and applauded the misery of others. While it's very different to watch a person eating a live cockroach than to watch a lion eat a person, I believe the same sick desire is at the root of both audiences. It may seem a very big leap, to go from where we are now to watching a TV show where someone may die, but five years ago I would never have dreamt people would be picking a spouse from a game show, or eating the genitalia of a pig as "entertainment." It happens every week now on primetime. Even the show Jackass on MTV, while often funny, still puts these men in situations where they might be killed by several different methods. Mark my words, it will get worse. In the same way that this book became easier for me to read after the first fifty pages - as I became desensitized to it - so will we as a nation become more and more desensitized to what we consider entertaining. If you doubt we can go so far as to kill people for entertainment, I only point you to Mannix's book for a quick reminder of where we once were, not so long ago.

When I hear discussions of capital/corporal punishment, I like to read excerpts from the book to gain perspective. The book begins with the torture and execution of an entire Jewish family because of their refusal to eat pork. He goes on to describe the games, the inquisition, and the fanatics who were in control throughout history.

It's not an easy book to read. I had to put it down several times because it was so graphic. However, it's not gratuitous violence. It was compelling enough to pick back up again.

The book questions the effectiveness of punishment. The final pages are the arguments from both sides, those who are proponants and opponants of capitol or corporal punishment. I thought he did a good job of presenting the different arguments.

Mannix puts everything into historic perspective. He talks about how different societies grew up around corporal punishment (Rome, France, America, etc) and discusses different morals and ideals throughout the past thousand or so years that allowed torture to take place. His facts are interlaced with stories and rumors, which to me are just as interesting because it gives a sense of what people believed versus what actually took place. Religious factions play a large role in torture, and Mannix reviews which religious sects tortured and when and why they stopped.

Mannix discusses the different types of torture, from the instruments to the uses of each torture, and gives examples of each. He relates different torture devices to instruments he has already written about, which gave a sense of how torture evolved. Mannix also tells of which societies were (or are) the most effective at torturing their victims.

All in all, it was a very interesting read. I feel that I've learned a lot from this book, and I am very interested in continuing to learn more. This book was a great starting point.