In conjunction with the Channel 5 series, this book contains 16 essays on the most evil men and women of all time. Included are: Nero; Vlad the Impaler; King John; Ivan the Terrible; Attila the Hun; Rasputin; Hitler; Pol Pot; and Idi Amin.
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In association with Channel 5 television, this unique book profiles 16 evil men and women throughout history who have used their power to torture, kill, maim and eradicate millions of people.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Big Red Book of Bad,
By
This review is from: Most Evil Men and Women in History (Hardcover)
When I stumbled across this book it was selling for $8.00. It contains about as much accurate information as one might expect from an $8 text with such a title. Still, I wasn't expecting much more than an historical tabloid, so it's amusing, particularly when I imagine any friend of mine who gives a damn about military or political history reading it (and, naturally, convulsing).
Evil, now, is a strong word. It frames an argument and as such needs to be precisely defined: in this case, apparently, as arbitrary institutional sadism and cruelty on a massive scale. Some of the subjects make the cut easily - Vlad Dracula, Ivan Grozny, Pizarro, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin - not least because their sadism was massive and cruel and emanated from their wanton cult of personality, but because their acts set grave precedents. A good half of the book is considerably more foggy; and if we can assume the crimes of Nero, Attila, Torquemada and Stalin eclipse the breadth of scope of their projects or whatever intentions they had, the appearance of the remaining five subjects border on the bizarre: Elizabeth Bathory, for instance, is rather small potatoes compared to the aforementioned lot. One could level similar charges against Lucrezia Borgia, but Twiss declined. Ilse Koch (de facto Kommandantin of Buchenwald) was heinous on a personal scale, but also deeply conditioned by her environment; she was quite the cog in the Reichs machine, so if we include her, why not include Lynndie England, or any other member of any military or police institution that has committed atrocities with relish and powers of Koch's scope? Also, there is little evidence that Caligula actually did most of the things he is accused of; Roman histories are notoriously politicized and revisionist. Similarly, despite the generations raised on Robin Hood to see him as a bugbear, King John was a local thug among many; and I scarcely see why Mary, Queen of Scots should have been included at all. If it was purely on the pungency of the legends of these three, I'm not sure why Twiss omitted those of Richard III, most of which have no basis in reality. This is an Anglocentrist book. What I don't see are many Asians or Africans. Shaka Zulu? Oda Nobunaga? One of the early Khans? Madame Mao, or perhaps the Chairman himself? And among modern faces, why not Uday Hussein? I can see the argument that Saddam Hussein was a bully in a region of bullies, but Uday was deeply personal and hideously creative in his mechanisms of torture, most of whose victims seemed to be decided through instruments alien to reason. And where, oh where, is Andrew Jackson, pioneer of U.S. genocide? Of all omissions, this one cuts fairly raw. It is clearly not a requirement by Twiss, given the inclusion of Stalin and Attila and Queen Mary, that the evil of the subject be unalloyed; so what of it? Is she that ignorant of American history or does she just not care? This isn't to say it's a bad book; it's rather fun. But it is thoroughly mediocre, and fluffy at that. An ideal bedtime or bathroom book for the somewhat morbid historians among us.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great bedtime book!,
By
This review is from: Most Evil Men and Women in History (Hardcover)
I have been reading this book for the past week and it's a great bedtime book. Each story is about 5-6 pages long and it's just right for me. When I go to bed, I am already tired so I only read a few pages to get myself settled in and relaxed. The short stories are perfect for people who only read a little at a time. It's also a good bathtime book. Some of the mentionables would be Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Prince Vlad Dracula, Countess Elizabeth of Bathory, and Attila the Hun. There is also Nero, Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot and Bloody Mary. The stories from the first century AD to present day. It's great seeing how these people started out in their lives and how they ended up. The drama is nonstop. Hope you enjoy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most evil men and women in history,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Most Evil Men and Women in History (Hardcover)
I found this book fun and interesting. There is little doubt that Hitler, Stalin, Vlad, Pol Pot, Ivan, and Idi belong in here because they were responsible for millions of deaths or they were perhaps the most sadistic killers in history. Pol Pot is just as bad as Hitler because unlike Hitler, Pol Pot ordered an official genocide against his own country. In fact, Pol Pot killed the greatest percentage of his county's population in his amount of time in power than anyone else in history. Pizarro, Torquemada and Attila fit the category. If the accounts of Caligula and Nero are true, than they could belong on this list. I was shocked when I saw that Rasputin was on here, but I later read biographies about Rasputin. I now understand why Rasputin is in here. Rasputin was responsible for the fall of the royal family. The biographies that I have read about Rasputin think he is responsible for their demise (I have read some books that say that Rasputin KNEW that they would die and wanted them to die. The significance of bringing down the royal family lead to communism, which as taken the lives of 100 million to 140 million people. That is why Rasputin is in here. Fore those who want to learn more about Rasputin, I recommend buying The Rasputin File buy Edvard Radzinsky. Elizebeth and Ilse koch were, in my opinion, the most evil women in history and I think that they can deserve a place in this book. But what I don't understand is how King John and Bloody Mary are in here. Though I have learned that the author is from London, which explains a lot because they are the most hated leaders in English history, but when someone writes a book like this, than the author should be more open minded. King John wasn't very extreme for his time. There have been a lot of men in history such as Mao Zedong who killed 70 million of his people. Hirohito who was responsible for the tens of millions of deaths that his men carried out in the 1930s and 1940s. Khomeini who many people believe paved the way for the Islamic Holy war (which has killed millions of people literally and spiritually), killed 30,000 people in only 5 months in the Iranian massacres, and send hundreds of thousands of children armed with only a Quran against Hussein's army. Leopold II who killed 10 million Congolese (half the population). And Genghis Khan who killed 20 to 40 million people and destroyed entire civilizations. And Mary should be in here also. Her father, Henry VIII, was more evil than her (in my opinion), but neither of them deserve a place in this book. There have been worse women than her like Jiang Qing who killed 500,000 to 3,000,000 people. Empress Wu who killed many of her relatives and tortured and killed thousands of her people. And others that shouldn't be in a book like this but were more evil such as Irma Grese and Catharine de Medici. I would have given it 4 stars because of the list, but I am giving it 5 stars because I never heard of 2 of them before reading this book.
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