This trenchant monograph by Alex Adams provides a definitive account of the way torture has been represented in narrative texts before and after 9/11, and of how these representations have reinforced and challenged policy. It takes a strong and clear position while simultaneously uncovering layers of nuance in the “torture debate” through astute readings of texts ranging from Gillo Pontecorvo's anticolonial film Battle of Algiers (1963) to Kathryn Bigelow's dramatization of the murder of Osama bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty (2011). Political Torture in Popular Culture is also a valuable contribution to 9/11 studies in the way it historicizes that event, partly at least, by examining the “colonial inheritances” of the practice of torture by liberal democracies after 9/11 (28).

Indeed, much scholarly work on the cultural response to 9/11 – even that which is critical of the way the attacks have been ideologically evacuated from their contexts, causes and effects – struggles with the issue of locating them as a moment on a historical continuum. Though Adams notes that 9/11 is a “fundamental co-ordinate in the history of political torture as perpetrated by liberal democracies,” he resists ascribing too much importance to this singular moment by tracing these colonial inheritances (83). One example is the prevalence of the “utilitarian” argument – a position that is ostensibly against torture except in emergencies, a rhetorical notion that has a particularly grievous “colonial heritage” (27). It is also evident in the rise of Islamophobia, and Adams successfully shows how these inheritances are interlinked by looking at the use of torture in colonial conflicts and in the representation of these conflicts, particularly the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).

One example of the utilitarian argument which owes its enduring appeal largely to cultural representation is what Adams calls the “ticking bomb” narrative (22). This is the idea that torture is acceptable in instances when it could save lives or benefit the many (at the expense of the tortured few). Adams systematically debunks the plausibility of this conceit which has fuelled so many “race-against-time” thriller narratives. They are extremely unlikely to occur in the first place and extremely unlikely to yield any useful information. Moreover, in the War on Terror to date, torture has taken place “in a constellation of black sites – secret prisons – and never in situations that can be described as ticking bomb scenarios” (49). Adams also shows how colonial textual representations such as Jean Lartéguy's novel The Centurions (1960) and its film adaptation Lost Command (1966) have helped to popularize and indeed foster the “intellectual legitimacy and the appearance of common sense neutrality” of this argument which has such contemporary currency (27).

Another strength of the book is its clear rhetorical and moral position, which Adams states early on and which gives the book an impassioned tone that is tempered by rigour and detail. It is explicitly anti-torture and describes its ethical position as “deontological” (20). This means it “examines the nature of means independent of ends” and focusses on the “essential character” of actions (20). Two features of the book give this position meaning and nuance. First, it shows the debate to be more complex than simply for or against the utilitarian position and provides a robust consideration of adjacent issues. It outlines, for example, debates around the very definition of torture and several potential problems of accurate or truthful representations. Second, Adams deploys a rigorous theoretical framework that critically uses Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Foucault and, more substantially, Giorgio Agamben to show torture to be biopolitical and to exemplify a paradoxical “state of exception” which is in fact a “structuring norm” (49). Adams uses this frame to identify “[e]xtraterritorial spatiality, exceptional legality and the political exclusion of the victim” as the “three coordinates that align to allow torture” (57). These three “coordinates” are applied to Foucault's “triangulation of sovereignty, government, and discipline,” to create the six factors which “align to create the conditions for torture” (59).

This complex theoretical framework is developed over the first two chapters of the book, the “context” section, and then evidenced in the final three, the “text” section. This structure works in service of what is a complex and rich theoretical framework, but the book is actually more fluid then this might suggest in the sense that the texts are discussed from the beginning and the theory utilized throughout. Even the chapters and sections dedicated to the colonial texts always look forward, so analysis of The Centurions brings in discussion of the Fox TV network's series 24 (2001–10, 2014), for example. Political Torture in Popular Culture also benefits from its strident interdisciplinarity. Not only does it move seamlessly through literary, film and television texts, but it also effectively combines high theory, a postcolonial perspective and an American studies perspective. Overall, this is an engaging, rich and valuable book.