"Splendidly written and illustrated a gruesome but enjoyable journey through the history of pain and punishment. I was hooked from A to Z." Endorsement from James Herbert Who are the Maccabees? A modern pop combo, or a mother and her seven sons who suffered racking, skinning, burning, amputation and having a tongue pulled out and fried? The A to Z of Punishment and Torture is fascinating social history providing a wealth of weird folklore, such as the power of the hanged man's hand; astounding tales, like Mary Hamilton, the cross-dressing 14-times bigamist; and more recent outrages, such as the use of squassation at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Man's inhumanity to man continues, tragically, to know no bounds, yet the survivors' tales are heroic and legion. And who can resist a smirk at the knowledge that young Tony Blair received six of the best at his posh private school?
How many methods of causing somebody serious hurt can you think of? Two? Six? A dozen if you work for HM Revenue and Customs? I thought of quite a few and then had to discount one when I discovered that trepanning didn't count because it was a medical procedure. Although frankly, having read the Wikipedia entry on it, I'm surprised it didn't.
James Herbert promotes this book right across the front cover, which is not necessarily a good thing given his recent efforts at writing. Thankfully, Thompson's work can be taken a bit more seriously. This is veering, ironically, more towards the 'coffee-table' (goodness knows whose) category with its short paragraphs and simple explanations, with some entries being a list of incidents carried out over the years.
The author clearly enjoyed reading around the subject matter, resulting in some fascinating facts – for example, "the worst discipline which can be imposed on an idle army recruit today is a 200-metre run, 15 sit-ups or 25 press-ups". (I'm not being funny, but I've just done more than that in the name of Sport Relief.) And King Xerxes, in case you were wondering about the first thing beginning with X, apparently ordered 300 lashes and a rollocking to the sea. This is a difficult book to 'like', although the misanthropists amongst you will probably quite enjoy it. For everyone else it's a tad too specialist in a topic that most people would seek to avoid, but that's like saying Football Manager is crap because you don't like football. If you really want to read about lynchings and mutilation, here it's all condensed into one convenient volume for you. You psycho.
Author: Irene Thompson
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