Twisted Words: Torture and Liberalism in Imperial Britain

Abstract

events exactly as they will happen, but rather being able to visualise in the long term where terrorism may be going. In agreement with one of the key tenets of CTS and Blumenhau in Chapter 6, the importance of long-term studies in terrorism, not limited to the field of historiography, cannot be over-emphasised, even more so in the Anglosphere research scene, which tends to (unfairly) prize research aimed at fixing immediate symptoms, but not the issues dating back to the roots. In fact, Blumenhau’s Chapter 6, about how historians should not only take to heart the lessons of the past but should in fact be able to “predict the past” itself, is remarkably close to another of the tenets of CTS methodology, looking at past evidence with new perspectives. The cases discussed in this collection, and the debates which framed them, can teach one important, even if apparently obvious, lesson: complex issues that span decades cannot be fixed in a fortnight, despite the infatuation of policymakers with displaying immediate responsiveness to events. As I mentioned before, this collection’s original aim is to fill a lacuna in the discipline of historiography. However, its contents are useful to CTS, or indeed any, researcher dealing with terrorism. While it may not be explicitly stated as a goal, the collection does demystify and deconstruct some of the major discourses affecting the study of terrorism. In fact, I’d argue that is the most interesting part of the book, notwithstanding the specific case studies. The emphasis on semiotically charged concepts and definitions, which could almost be considered as elevating “terrorism” to the “concept-metaphor” status; retrospective analysis and prominence on interdisciplinarity resonate well with the idea that only a collective effort of scholarship can provide answers to “wicked issues” that affect humanity.