 | Book Details Title: The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence |
Book DescriptionReview “[A] deeply caring work. . . An essential primer on the roots of police violence.”, Publishers Weekly”Ralph brings necessary light to the problem of police torture. A damning indictment of the senseless and seemingly unceasing violence committed by those charged with serving the public.”, Kirkus Reviews”Compelling . . . It is impossible to read The Torture Letters without the nagging realization that right now, somewhere in the United States, a similar story is playing out in real time. This book matters.”, The Nation”Ralph traces the painful history of policing that prohibits officers from holding their peers accountable and discusses how policing is deeply rooted in maintaining racial dominance over people of color in Chicago. . . . [He] builds an argument for human rights that extend to all people.”, Newcity“A comprehensive and thought-provoking account of the ‘horrific’ effect of past and present police torture on the future of Chicago and its residents.”, Chicago Maroon“Humane hands of care molded The Torture Letters in striking contrast to the torturers and complicit powers those very hands exposed. Carefully conceptualized, carefully researched, and carefully written, Ralph reveals a tragic history of police torture in Chicago and a heroic struggle to secure justice for survivors. This book is indispensable.”, Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning“In this devastatingly powerful volume, Laurence deploys the epistolary method to reveal the results of fourteen years of meticulous research into the history of torture committed against people of color by the Chicago Police Department, focusing on incidents from the 1970s to the present. Through his impassioned open letters to victims, city officials, students of color, and others, Ralph brilliantly exposes the relationship between torture and racism in the United States through the horrific stories of those devastated by police violence. The Torture Letters is one of those extraordinary volumes whose contents are accessible to all readers, and I believe it is a necessary and important addition to the literature that measures the cost—both economic, and, more importantly, human—of police violence.”, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of J”This is one of the most important books on our country’s criminal legal system that I have ever read. Ralph shines a light on a part of the system that many have long refused to acknowledge and forces us to reckon with what has been done in our name. With this book Ralph has not only reasserted his status as one of our most rigorous researchers, but has further demonstrated that he is a brilliant writer, able to draw us into the lives of people across Chicago with compelling, empathetic prose. He has done all of us a great service by writing this book.”, Clint Smith, author of Counting Descent“A powerful and blunt reminder that regimes of torture persist not because of the exceptional depravity of a few but because of the passive complicity of many. In the tradition of Hannah Arendt, Ralph illustrates how unexceptional one need be to commit acts of great cruelty. At the same time, he honors those who have dedicated their lives to the radical acts of goodness that are necessary to undo tremendous harm committed be powerful people. Perhaps most importantly, with unabashed love and care, he invites us all to think critically about where we might find ourselves and how to fight the silences that create and maintain profoundly dehumanizing systems.”, Eve L. Ewing, author of Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side“In this morally-urgent book, Ralph shines a critical light on acts that have too long remained in the shadows—acts of cruelty, lawlessness, and cover-up. Investigative reporting blends with essay writing and ethnography to reveal a history of torture committed by the Chicago Police Department over the last several decades. We meet the officers who committed heinous acts and the men who survived them; members of the force who tried to do the right thing and those who turned blind eye; and young people organizing against police violence in all its forms. This is a novel and necessary read.”, Matthew Desmond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Evicted Read more About the Author Laurence Ralph is a professor of anthropology at Princeton University. He is the author of Renegade Dreams: Living with Injury in Gangland Chicago, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Read more Customers Review:This book should not be $75 in hardback. | |
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