Cruel and Unusual: Punishment and U.S. Culture

From the excesses of Puritan patriarchs to the barbarism of slavery and on into the prison-industrial complex, punishment in the US has a long and gruesome history. In the post-Vietnam era, the prison population has increased tenfold and the death penalty has enjoyed a renaissance. Cruel and Unusual offers an exploration of the history of punishment as mediated in American culture. Grounding his analysis in Marxist theory, psychoanalysis and Foucault's influential work on discipline, Brian ...