For millennia mankind has devised ingenious & diabolical means of inflicting pain on fellow human beings This deplorable but seemingly universal trait has eaten away at mankind's very claim to civilisation Despite how repugnant the practice of torture appears to us today for at least 3000 years it formed part of most legal codes throughout Europe & the Far East The Big Book of Pain is an exploration of the systematic use throughout the ages of various means of punishment torture coercion & torment It takes the reader into the Ancient Roman Coliseum the medieval dungeon the Inquisitional interrogation the auto-da-fe the witch-trial & the worst of prisons It is a shocking & compelling study of the shameful methods & motives of the torturer & the executioner & of the heinous duty they have performed through the ages