This book
Basic Documents About the Treatment of Detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib has a special place in my heart because it was the first one I published. It's held up pretty well over time.
The cover, of course, is awfully clunky, and I've learned that white is not usually a good color for the cover background. If I were doing it today, I'd probably find a U.S. government public domain image of Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib to serve as the dominant image and put it over a dark grey background. I would probably choose a different font than the Copperplate Gothic I used here, too--but I have to say that the Copperplate Gothic does have a certain appeal!
The content is still solid. The Taguba report is essential reading for an understanding of Abu Ghraib, and the Supreme Court cases are still controlling law. I would probably add more about the Guantanamo interrogation protocols and include some of the more egregrious Justice Department memoranda.
The interior design is fine. I have no heartburn with anything I did. About two-thirds of the book simply incorporates Supreme Court PDFs of their case reports, which look a bit old-fashioned but are the real deal. That fits with my idea for the book, which is to encourage (force?) people to look at the raw documents whenever possible.
The message of the book is still right on target and I am still proud I published it. The rule of law is the winning strategy in the Global War on Terror, and it was, and is, both foolish and wrong for the Bush administration to pursue a strategy of "taking the gloves off" in the treatment of prisoners.
Financially speaking, the book has been profitable, and sales have been pretty steady. There are more copies of this book in the WorldCat library catalog than any other book I've published. Net lifetime revenue ranks 7th out of all my titles. I expect the book will continue to sell well for many more years.
I hope you will add my book to your collection, and even better, buy a copy for your local library. I would hazard that for at least the next hundred years, it will be important that every generation to relearn the lessons of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. There's no better way to do that than to look directly at the original primary documents.
Cordially,
Fred Zimmerman
Publisher, Nimble Books LLC
P.S. I strongly recommend that people interested in this topic also buy Darius Rejali's authoritative history of torture. Darius was a classmate of mine at Swarthmore and I learned more from him there than from any other single person, professors included.
Torture and Democracy The bottom line is that regardless of whether torture is wrong (of course it is), it does not work.
