Gourevitch at Brown on Wednesday

Speaking of the public appetite for torture, Philip Gourevitch, the author (with Errol Morris) of Standard Operating Procedure, will be at Brown's Watson Institute at 4 on Thursday.

Here's a bit about the book.

“Standard Operating Procedure,” with Philip Gourevitch, editor of The Paris Review, staff writer for The New Yorker, and author of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: stories from Rwanda. Gourevitch will discuss his new book, Standard Operating Procedure, coauthored with Errol Morris. Standard Operating Procedure is the story of American soldiers who were sent to Iraq as liberators only to find themselves working as jailers in Saddam Hussein's old dungeons, responsible for implementing the sort of policy they were supposed to be fighting against. It is the story of a defining moment in the war, and a defining moment in our understanding of ourselves-the story of the infamous Abu Ghraib photographs of prisoner abuse, as seen through the eyes of the soldiers who took them and appeared in them. It is the story of how those soldiers were at once the instruments of a great injustice and the victims of a great injustice. 

Location: Joukowsky Forum.

I had the pleasure of meeting Philip when we were both covering the Plunder Dome trial in 2002. He's a good guy and a terrific writer.