The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization Through Medieval Times to the Present

By Stefan Isaksson

The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization Through Medieval Times to the Present
Jean Kellaway
The Lyons Press
192 pages
ISBN: 1585746223

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.