The Last Gasp The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber [Hardcover]

The Last Gasptakes us to the dark side of human history in the first full chronicle of the gas chamber in the United States. In page-turning detail, award-winning writer Scott Christianson tells a dreadful story that is full of surprising and provocative new findings. First constructed in Nevada in 1924, the gas chamber, a method of killing sealed off and removed from the sight and hearing of witnesses, was originally touted as a humane method of execution. Delving into science, war, industry, medicine, law, and politics, Christianson overturns this mythology for good. He exposes the sinister links between corporations looking for profit, the military, and the first uses of the gas chamber after World War I. He explores little-known connections between the gas chamber and the eugenics movement. Perhaps most controversially, he has unearthed new evidence about American and German collaboration in the production and lethal use of hydrogen cyanide and about Hitlers adoption of gas chamber technology developed in the United States. More than a book about the death penalty, this compelling history ultimately reveals much about Americas values and power structures in the twentieth century.

Scott Christiansonis a writer, investigative reporter, and historian. He is the author of several acclaimed books, includingWith Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America, winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Distinguished Honors and aChoiceOutstanding Book Award. His bookCondemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death Housewas the subject of feature stories in theVillage Voice, the New York Times, The Nation,and on the History Channel.

Scott Christianson has masterfully chronicled the history of the use of gas to kill human beings. In doing so, he has shown that the Nazi regime drew strength and comfort from the United States' use of the gas chamber beginning nine years before Hitler took power, as well asl“˜