Items related to A Handbook on Hanging

A Handbook on Hanging - Softcover

Duff, Charles

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9780940322677: A Handbook on Hanging

Synopsis

A Handbook on Hanging is a Swiftian tribute to that unappreciated mainstay of civilization: the hangman. With barbed insouciance, Charles Duff writes not only of hanging but of electrocution, decapitations, and gassings; of innocent men executed and of executions botched; of the bloodlust of mobs and the shabby excuses of the great. This coruscating and, in contemporary America, very relevant polemic makes clear that whatever else capital punishment may be said to be--justice, vengeance, a deterrent--it is certainly killing.

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About the Author

Charles Duff (1894–1966) served as an officer in the British Merchant Navy during World War I and then in the intelligence division of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. After retiring, he taught linguistics and languages in London and Singapore while writing travel guides, histories, satires, and a series of textbooks.

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) was a British-American journalist and social critic. Known for his confrontational style and contrarian views on a range of social issues, Hitchens was a frequent contributor to The Nation, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. Hitchens recounts his struggle with esophageal cancer in Mortality, which was published in 2012.

Reviews

This is a chronicle of hanging and other forms of capital punishment throughout history. It is also a tongue-in-cheek commentary on humankind's fervor for public executions and other grisly forms of entertainment. Though published in 1923, this is not out of place in today's society.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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