Endorsement
The two meanings of 'torture' - to twist words and to inflict suffering - are shown to be allied in this indispensable historical and juridical study of the Eighth Amendment phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Originating in the English Bill of Rights (1689), the phrase was perverted in the American slave codes to establish structures of racism. The perversion has been developed in our own time by twisting attention from the pain of the victim to the intentions of the tormentors.
Peter Linebaugh, author of
The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
From the Publisher
The two meanings of 'torture' - to twist words and to inflict suffering - are shown to be allied in this indispensable historical and juridical study of the Eighth Amendment phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Originating in the English Bill of Rights (1689), the phrase was perverted in the American slave codes to establish structures of racism. The perversion has been developed in our own time by twisting attention from the pain of the victim to the intentions of the tormentors.
Peter Linebaugh, author of
The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century
Peter Linebaugh
The two meanings of 'torture' - to twist words and to inflict suffering - are shown to be allied in this indispensable historical and juridical study of the Eighth Amendment phrase 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Originating in the English Bill of Rights (1689), the phrase was perverted in the American slave codes to establish structures of racism. The perversion has been developed in our own time by twisting attention from the pain of the victim to the intentions of the tormentors.