History of Modern Torture

[nancylebov]

I'm reading Torture and Democracy by Darius Regali, and I'll be posting about it, but meanwhile I have a small question. The author describes his view of the development of modern torture as being more accurate than some other commonly held beliefs. I doubt that most people have beliefs about the history of torture, but I could be wrong.

So, do you have ideas about what sort of government uses torture? Whether anything about torture has changed significantly? How torture techniques get promulgated?