Torture - Kenneth Roth

Today's leading thinkers explore the most incendiary human rights issue of our time Big-name contributors: These are the leading experts. Timely and in the news: Abu Graib and Guantanamo have us focused on this topic as never before. On-going investigations will keep it in the news. Strong sales of comparable books: The recent commercial and critical success of comparable titles by Philip Gourevitch and Samantha Power shows that there exists an audience for books on this topic. Of all the issues on the human rights agenda, torture offered Americans the moral highground...until this year. With the abuses at Abu Ghraib that led to accusations of torture within the domestic criminal justice system, the question of cruel and unusual treatment has taken on new urgency in the U.S. and now similar abuses by British soldiers are being uncovered. In Torture, twelve newly-written essays by leading thinkers and experts range over history and continents, offering a nuanced, up-to-the-minute exploration of this wrenching but timely topic.;Intended for a general audience, some of the key questions addressed include how to define torture, whether torture is ever effective, and whether it is ever acceptable.