The Abu Ghraib Effect

A brilliant examination of the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs within the context of art history, "The Abu Ghraib Effect" has already entered into popular jargon - a testament to its power as a popular political meme. The value of this brief study, however, is that it provides a germane and enlightening perspective on the Abu Ghraib photos that is more refined than that stemming from traditional political analysis. The upshot of Stephen Eisenman's thesis is that the discernable traditions of Greco-Roman art point to a way of seeing and understanding images of pain, torture, and suffering that, contrary to bolstering the repugnance of the Abu Ghraib photos, make them strangely palatable - even soothing - in their familiarity. This isn't a book about how awful (either politically or personally) the incidents at Abu Ghraib were; it's a book about how we psychologically process such images within their historical, political and aesthetic contexts.