title: The Zong: A Massacre, the Law and the End of Slavery. By JamesWalvin. Yale University Press. 2011. xi + 248pp. $32.50/£18.99.
abstract: This wide-ranging work examines the notorious prevalence of torture and physical violence in medieval literature and provides convincing insights into its function as a rhetorical device.Tracy argues that the frequency of violent episodes in literature did not reflect, but rather critiqued, reality.In other words, descriptions of torture were used rhetorically to characterize an 'Other' and to distinguish the writers' and readers' own societies as places in which physical violence was looked upo
journal: History