Paradoxes of punishment

Keally McBride’s Punishment and Political Order explores a paradox: punishment potentially reinforces and undermines legitimate democratic authority. McBride works through this paradox using a range of texts and devices. She draws her arguments from analysis of fictional texts, specifically Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony,” and political philosophy, including Locke, Nietzsche, Grotius, Bentham, Foucault, and Agamben. She employs examples of punishment in U.S. prisons historically (e.g., Eastern State Penitentiary) and currently (e.g., Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo). McBride also weaves into her analysis contemporary data from public opinion polls, news reports, prison studies, and comparisons between the United States and other countries. This slim book, in other words, covers a lot of ground. McBride has also achieved her goal of producing a “smart and pleasurable” book to read. (ix)