Review: Execution, by Geoffrey Abbott

Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of

Geoffrey Abbott

Sometimes I think that not everyone shares my macabre sense of humor, and then I feel slightly bad about laughing out loud while reading books like this in public.  In my defense, this book is written in a darkly humorous tone, so it's hard not to laugh.

Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, by Geoffrey Abbott, is broken into 70 small sections, each with a different method of execution.  Abbott describes each method, and then gives a short historical background and usually a primary source example.  Most of them I'd heard of before, but others, like the Spanish Donkey and the Dry Pan, were new to me. 

What I like about this book, other than introductions to new methods of execution, is that it's broken up into convenient, small sections.  It's actually the perfect bathroom book - you need to read this one bit at a time to really absorb the information (and picture it, curiously, with the face of someone you can't stand superimposed over the victim).  The drawback of this is that it doesn't offer quite as much historical information as I would like, and I was also a bit disappointed that Abbott doesn't seem to use endnotes or footnotes (which is only to be expected by a mass-market publisher).  He does provide a select bibliography (some of which the nerd in me is delighted to see that I've already read!) and cool appendices with executioner terminology and even an 1884 application to be an executioner.  The tone of the book is humorous, but doesn't necessarily come down on either side of the capital punishment issue, which is refreshing compared to books by, say, Richard J. Evans (scholarly author), who seems to think that his reader needs to be reminded of how! horrible! executions! are! every page or so.

I definitely recommend this book for the macabre goth kid in your family, and the history nerd, but probably not that person you always suspected would suddenly snap and kill their friends or family.

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