Customer Reviews

Assassination

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Miles Hudson looks at eighteen assassinations of history, including Ceasar, Collins, Martin King, Gandhi, Sadat, and Lincoln, just to name a few. All are useful inclusions except Jesus Christ, who was really not assassinated and doesn't belong here (we learn little about him in any case). The author examines each with an eye to how effective they were in fulfilling the goals of the assassin. Interestingly, he concludes that only Trotsky's killing could be called a success in this regard. All the others were failures. Readers will want to explore the conclusion to see how Hudson scores the murders on his scale.



While excellent, I gave this four stars instead of five because so little is said about the assassinations themselves or the assassins. What allowed the killings to be successful? What mistakes were made? Why did the assassins carry out the job? The book is mostly silent here, focusing on the lives and times of the murdered. We are not even told that the Russian Czar was killed by one of Lenin's brothers! But I would still recommend this work to all interested in the history of great men and villians