Torture and Democracy by Darius Rejali

 

This is the official webpage of Torture and Democracy. Torture and Democracy is the most comprehensive study of modern torture yet written. It takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib. As the book proceeds from the history of one torture technique to another, it draws the startling conclusion that, as the twentieth century progressed, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, 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. 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.

Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.

Darius Rejali is professor of political science at Reed College and an internationally recognized expert on government torture and interrogation. He is the author of Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran.

You can learn more about Prof. Rejali here as well as descriptions of his current research projects.

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