He wanted an end to the barbarity of capital punishment, for example.

ECONOMIST: American poets

Kevin Spacey plays Richard as a sort of Barnum of barbarity.

NEWYORKER: Boldfaced Bard

An attempt to challenge this method of execution failed in the Supreme Court, which stated in its 1983 judgement that hanging did not involve torture, barbarity, humiliation or degradation.

BBC: India and the death penalty

British accounts provide rich illustrations of the clash between two civilisations whose early interactions were dogged by their respective convictions of their own superiority and the barbarity of the other.

ECONOMIST: Why China has a long memory

Considering that Rwanda witnessed one of the most appalling waves of barbarity in history just 16 years ago, when around 800, 000 people were hacked to death in three months, the efficiency is extraordinary.

ECONOMIST: Rwanda and other aid darlings

In a statement, Cardinal O'Brien, the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, described the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie as an "act of unbelievable horror and gratuitous barbarity".

BBC: Cardinal Keith O'Brien calls for Megrahi inquiry