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

Throughout history, cultures around the world have found justice for the most extreme crimes by condemning the guilty to death. Retribution has been served by many methods, from beheading, garroting, entombment, and burning, to modern means such as electrocution and lethal injection. And in the process of inflicting tortuous pain, even more ingenious devices have been employed.

While torture has usually been carried out behind closed doors, it is only recently that executions have ceased to be a popular and public spectacle. The History of Torture and Execution examines these fascinating but grisly subjects by time, region, and method. Beginning with the often crude methods of meting out justice used by early and first millennium civilizations, and evolving from the sadistic tools of the medieval age to the modern search for humane execution, controversial issues are authoritatively covered.

JEAN KELLAWAY was born in Yorkshire, the youngest of six children. She studied social psychology at university then achieved her ambition of becoming a journalist, first on a local paper and then for a national agency, before beginning a career as a writer. Apart from studies of social history, she has written several novels centering on Britain’s criminal justice system.