Overview

"Hurtis Portland activist Kristian Williams' collection of articles and interviews on the history, psychology, and current state of torture in democratic societies. Williams, author ofOur Enemies in BlueandAmerican Methods: Torture and the Logic of Domination, has pulled together a vast and comprehensive resource on this abominable act. Articles include David Cunningham's ""Prisons, Torture, and Imperialism,"" a piece on the anarchist perspective taken from comments at the 2008 Anarchist Bookfair in San Francisco, and a great essay on writing about torture, among many others. This sober 64-page document is a heavy piece of work-dark, informative, and oft times harrowing. But it's also about working hard to intact change. As says Williams in the Gyozo Nehez interview, ""At the outset, I think it's more important to have a sense of hope, that things can be different and through our actions we can contribute to that change. The joy comes later, from struggle itself as much as from victory.""Hurtis a how-to manual on fighting and understanding torture-a piece of the struggle itself."

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9781934620649

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Reviews

As prisoners from Georgia, Ohio, and California decry the torture of long-term isolation and years of brutality, as we mark the 40th anniversary of the Attica Rebellion and remember how New York tortured surviving prison leaders, Hurt: Notes on Torture in a Modern Democracy by Kristian Williams is an important contribution to deepening our commitment to ending human rights violations and fighting for a more just world. --Claude Marks, former political prisoner and director of the Freedom Archives (which produced the films Legacy of Torture and Cointelpro 101) In these short, engaging, and readable chapters Kristian Williams explores the hurt caused by the state when it chooses to use torture. Hurt challenges the modern, democratic states' use of torture as part of challenging the state itself. To challenge the state we have many tasks, reading Hurt is the first. --Kevin Van Meter, member, Team Colors Collective For more than a decade Kristian Williams has been poking at the grim underbelly of U.S. politics with unrelenting clarity. In Hurt: Notes on Torture in a Modern Democracy, Williams levels his attention on a wide range of issues, from torture to prison abolition to anarchism to the role of media in contemporary society. For those willing to engage the complexities and shortcomings of U.S.American democracy--replete with its internal contradictions, marginalized populations, professionalized politics, and yammering classes--Kristian Williams is your guy and Hurt is a constructive step forward. --Jules Boykoff, author of Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States

In these short, engaging, and readable chapters Kristian Williams explores the hurt caused by the state when it chooses to use torture. Hurt challenges the modern, democratic states' use of torture as part of challenging the state itself. To challenge the state we have many tasks, reading Hurt is the first. --Kevin Van Meter, member, Team Colors Collective

Author Information

Kristian Williams is an author and journalist whose work has appeared in theColumbia Journalism Review and Counterpunch. His books include Our Enemies in Blue. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

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