BOOK REVIEW: INFERNAL DEVICE: machinery of torture and execution, by Erik C. Rühling
What a wicked little book. It's just the thing for an apartment-sized coffee table, at a price that won't break your budget. In terms of torture gear, all the usual suspects are depicted and described within, along with a dungeon's worth of obscurities you've probably never heard of.
Rühling taught himself 3-D rendering in order to create his lovely (and gruesome) little book. This petite yet substantial volume (40 full-color photo pages) deserves some kind of design award. A few, perhaps. He renders his gallery of torture tools in a stark museum-exhibit style while his text, an impressive feat of condensed scholarship, vividly evokes images of the poor souls who were subjected to their horrors. It's a jarring and effective contrast of the mechanistic and humanistic. I am struck by the degree of brutality extended toward women in particular via these devices. Also an awareness of how, contrary to popular belief, we have not really evolved at all from the times and places in which these devices were employed. Hence Rühling's book also serves as a handy little reminder of how man's inhumanity to man is never more than a government directive away ... if that. Trenchant thoughts in these torturous times.
Among the book's highlights are some pithy and amusing treatises on the origins and history of various well-known devices such as the rack and the guillotine. As with most of the devices in Rühling's book, the guillotine underwent various manifestations and has borne many names in many countries at many times. This popular device's employment was often more grisly (read: less instantaneous) than most of us think. Yet my personal favorite is the ear chopper. Whether or not it was actually used, it is fun to contemplate the psychological torment value. No doubt, this says more about me than the ear chopper itself. Heh heh.
CLICK HERE to buy this book at Amazon.
Wishing you a beautiful day,
Bill Brent
[this page last updated: 2008.02.03, 8:58 p.m. Hawaii time]
[keywords: Erik Ruhling]
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