Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Torture

Book excerpt: This volume offers diverse insights on how the practice of torture has impacted society and how we view human nature. After the Second World War, it was hoped that torture had been permanently vanquished among modern liberal states, and was only practiced by brutal totalitarian regimes. However, events after 9/11 revealed that the re-emergence of torture is an ever-present threat, even among leading democracies. Drawing from their knowledge of the humanities and social sciences, the contributors offer their expertise on the deleterious effects of torture and reveal that its trauma is interwoven into the fabric of modern society, requiring constant diligence to be rooted out and kept at bay. Contributors are William Fitzhugh Brundage, Federico Ciavattone, Noora Virjamo, Toni Koivulahti, Diana Medlicott, Stuart Molloy, Lon Olson, Martin Previsic, David Senesh and Hedi Viterbo.