Civilizing Torture: An American Tradition by W. Fitzhugh Brundage (review)

Civilizing Torture presents a wealth of historical information from original sources, documenting the commonplace nature of torture and corporal punishment in the United States from the colonial period to the twenty-first century. It represents a major contribution to the study of torture and corporal punishment in the United States. The book's main strength is its combination of a broad scope with an extensive use of primary source research. It documents forms of torture not formerly covered in other books and shows that torture goes further back in American history than previously realized. The book is comprehensive, well documented, and accurate, getting small details right and showing how they fit into the big picture.

The book has two main aims: to document the extensiveness of torture in America, and to document the debate over torture. As the author states, the "American Tradition" of the title "is not a particular method of tormenting the body," but a tradition of debate. "Like a minuet" in which costumes and music change but the beat remains the same, "the debates have unfolded in predictable fashion" over the centuries (p. 2). Americans "invariably" invoke American exceptionalism to argue that torture should not occur in the United States, and when it does, it represents the aberrant behavior of a few rogue individuals (p. 3). Americans claim we are too civilized to torture, and cite the supposed absence of torture in America as one of the things that separates us from our enemies. Brundage's extensive documentation of the reality of torture demonstrates the hypocrisy of American exceptionalism on torture, thus linking the two goals of the book.

Civilizing Torture has chapters on torture by Native Americans and colonists in the early colonial period, corporal punishment in nineteenth-century prisons, the torture of enslaved persons, prisoner abuse during the Civil War, and torture in the age of imperialism, particularly during the Philippine War of 1899–1902. In the twentieth century, the book covers "third degree" torture in police stations and torture during the Cold War, then concludes with a discussion of torture by the Chicago police in the late twentieth century and torture supported by the George W. Bush administration in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror.

Brundage's treatment of torture by Native Americans during the colonial period is well documented and extensive, better than anything I have seen elsewhere on the topic. Native Americans tortured prisoners cruelly, but did so due to religious and cultural beliefs that required them to torture some captives in order to avenge the death of comrades and put their souls to rest. Europeans did not understand Native American beliefs, and therefore took torture as further proof that Native Americans were brutish savages who lacked morals and humanity.

One controversial choice with the book is its decision not to define torture. While quoting the present-day legal definition of torture from the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the author does not use it. He chooses not to "impose a present-day definition of torture on the past" but instead "traces debates over forms of violence and coercion that at least some contemporaries labeled as torture" (p. 6). This has the advantage of leaving the definition of torture open, but I found his definition too broad. Physical violence against criminals, enslaved people, and prisoners of war all have the physical infliction of pain in common, but little else. Do the same factors cause each of these forms of "torture"?

Brundage's decision not to define torture often pays off. He discusses the connections between the third degree in police torture and the rise of lynching in the United States. While most lynchings were simple executions, in some cases mobs of perpetrators tortured and abused the victim before execution, inflicting as painful a death as possible. The ritualized cruelty of lynch-mob torture reminded me of Brundage's description of American Indian torture, although the author did not make this connection...