The Tortured History of State Terror. Review of Alfred W. McCoy's <em>A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror</em> (NY: Metropolitan Books, 2006)

Authors

  • Lesley Gill American University

Keywords:

Latin American History, Latin American Politics, Imperialism, torture

Abstract

A Question of Torture penetrates the historical amnesia and offers a corrective to the government record of denials and misrepresentations about the participation of the U.S. military in torture. The book demonstrates that U.S. security forces used torture long before Abu Ghraib, and that it formed an integral part of how U.S. power was projected abroad. McCoy traces the development of CIA torture techniques in the 1950s and examines their application in places such as Vietnam, Latin America, Iraq and  Afghanistan, and he makes a persuasive case that torture does not work because most of the information coerced from prisoners is worthless.

Author Biography

Lesley Gill, American University

Lesley Gill es Profesora  en el Departamento de Antropología  de American University en Washington DC. Sus intereses académicos e intelectuales incluyen el estudio de la violencia política, los derechos humanos, los efectos de la globalización, y los cambios en las relaciones  entre clase, raza, y género en América Latina. Es autora de numerosas publicaciones, incluyendo los libros Precarious Dependencies: Gender, Class and Domestic Service in Bolivia (Columbia University Press, 1994), Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State (Columbia University Press, 2000), and The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas (Duke University Press, 2004).

Published

2007-02-01

How to Cite

Gill, L. (2007). The Tortured History of State Terror. Review of Alfred W. McCoy’s <em>A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror</em> (NY: Metropolitan Books, 2006). A Contracorriente: Una Revista De Estudios Latinoamericanos, 4(3), 209–213. Retrieved from https://acontracorriente.chass.ncsu.edu/index.php/acontracorriente/article/view/323

Issue

Section

Reviews / Reseñas