Published to coincide with the 200th anniversary of France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, this book looks in depth at the use of torture during the French-Algerian War (1954-1962) to reveal the failure of that liberal democratic state to uphold its obligations on rights. Rita Maran examines the Mission Civilisatrice ideology that justified the routine use of torture during that war and points out that human rights violations traceable to ideology occur irrespective of a state's political system or tradition of rights. The book contrasts the routinization of...