Toward and beyond the abolition of capital punishment / executioner's waning defenses / Blinded by science on the road to abolition? / Abolition in the United States by 2050 : on political capital and ordinary acts of resistance / beginning of the end? / Rocked but still rolling : the enduring institution of capital punishment in historical and comparative perspective / For execution methods challenges, the road to abolition is paved with paradox / Perfect execution : abolitionism and the paradox of lethal injection / "No improvement over electrocution or even a bullet" : lethal injection and the meaning of speed and reliability in the modern execution process / Torture, war, and capital punishment : linkages and missed connections / Making difference : modernity and the political formations of death