The author of The Way of the Gladiator continues his exploration of the dark side of history with this grisly account of pain and punishment through the ages.

Human beings have a deep-seated instinct for cruelty, and, so far, have not evolved much past it. History is rife with examples of the infliction of pain used as penalty or execution. In The History of Torture, Daniel P. Mannix takes you from the crucifixions of ancient Rome, to the hanging of women during the Salem witch trials, to the atrocities discovered at Nazi concentration camps.

The act of torture has shifted from simple barbarism to advanced psychological techniques thanks to science and technology. Now it's not just an actual flogging that will have a prisoner spilling his guts, but law enforcement's coercive tactics that might prompt a confession.

Follow Mannix as he: leads you into the chambers of Inquisitors, who elevated torture to an art form; illuminates the myriad miseries of the slave trade, America's greatest contribution to the torture hall of fame; and explains the most terrible and famous of all Chinese tortures, the Ling-chez or "death of a thousand cuts."

No country or culture is spared in this wide-reaching survey of suffering.