The Instruments of Torture, Revised and Updated
Torture is associated most closely with the absolute monarchies of history and the totalitarian and dictatorial regimes of the more recent past and present day. The classical world employed it widely though by no means indiscriminately, while in the West it doesn't seem to have been used systematically until the medieval era. After the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, Western countries began banning it - though actual practice didn't necessarily keep pace with official legislation. And in recent years such democratic countries as Denmark, the UK, and the United States have all, it is claimed, strayed over the boundary between justifiably close and actually abusive questioning.