Customer Reviews

Most Evil Men and Women in History

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

As if we needed a book about 'evil' people, here is a book that many people have read and is in the discount section of a major book chain. The choice of these 16 men and women is very subjective. I would have made other choices, as some of these people either don't deserve to be there ('Bloody' Mary and Rasputin) or are small potatoes (Countess Bathory, Ilse Koch).
As one of the previous reviewers have noted, why not add a few such as Mao, Bokassa, the Hutu murderers in Rwanda, Himmiler to name just a few. These people probably deserve to be identified for what they were.
This author has subsequently written many other books about evil people (women, dictators, criminals). I guess the examples of bad people really sell. I think the subject of this book are all offensive people and we really don't need a book extolling their 'virtues'.
One other comment is the poor writing in this book. As a previous reviewer has noted, there are many grammatical mistakes in this book. I also noted a historical mistake. The book stated the father of Nicholas II was Nicholas I. The real father was Alexander III. Altogether an alright read. The reader could pick a better book about a more suitable subject.

This book may come across as interesting, but that's purely because of the subject matter. The writing is pretty poor, and the grammar is horrible. The author jumps around a bit and writes things in a confusing manner. The book tends to lack in explaining why some of these people are evil. Fortunately, it has a Bibliography, so one can do further research into these icons.

It is always dangerous to write books like these. What makes one man or woman more evil then another? Here are the persons who, according to the author, are the most evil persons in history:

- Caligula
- Nero
- Attila the Hun
- King John
- Torquemada
- Vlad Dracula
- Francisco Pizarro
- Bloody Mary
- Ivan the Terrible
- Elizabeth Bathory
- Rasputin
- Jozef Stalin
- Adolf Hitler
- Ilse Koch
- Pol Pot
- Idi Amin

There is no doubt that Hilter and Stalin should be in this book, but what about Caligula and Elizabeth Bathory? Recent studies have shown that the stories that surround both Caligula and Elizabeth were mostly invented. Robert Graves' book 'I Claudius' is fiction, but a lot of people really believe that the stories in his book actually happened. Okay, Caligula was cruel, but hasn't every king or emperor done cruel things? Elizabeth Bathory was a politician and a woman. Isn't it probable that all the stories were invented by people (i.e. men) who wanted to stop her political career? I guess no one will ever know.

Nonetheless this is an intriguing book with small biographies of some of the greatest villains in the history of the world.

Well, I'm sure there could be several more versions of this book as time progresses and we discover the true crimes of politicians and other crazed people from the past and today, but for now, this book will suffice.
With each chapter I read, my jaw dropped a little further upon discovering the true atrocities forced upon people by this truly evil men and women. It's amazing that the people living in the countries and/or time periods that these individuals lived ever made it out alive. Most of us know about Hitler, Pol Pot, Rasputin, and Stalin because we were taught about them in school or we're old enough to remember, but I didn't know anything about Ilsa Koch or Caligula or Torqemeda and their crimes make me want to cry for the people who had to experience them. I just loathe the fact that most of these evil people weren't punished more than they were. And what's truly sad and evil about the whole thing is that genocides (like those that Pol Pot and Hitler enacted) and other crimes like these people committed still happen today (i.e. Sudan and let us not EVER forget Rwanda). This book needs to be a wake up call for people. Go out and buy this book and read it.
I enjoyed the book thoroughly, but my heart ached for the people afflicted by these truly evil, deranged individuals.

This book isn't very well written and I would only recommend for a breif summary of the people in it. I wasn't familiar with a lot of them so I still enjoyed it.

Also, published in the USA by Barnes & Noble Books 2002 with the same red cover ISBN #0760734968. A cataloque of horrific evil, from the first century AD to the present day, is presented in about 200 pages. The book presents the 16 most evil people, in the author's opinion, and includes Hitler snd Stalin as well as some lesser known evil persons.

If you like to slow down and look at car accidents, this book is for you.

Seriously, if you like history and if you are curious about any of the people profiled in this book, then buy it. Also great for people (like me) who often have to put books down or who don't finish books due to a busy schedule.

The people in this book are sick, sadistic people. It's unbelievable the atrocities that they were able to get away with. My favorite (strange choice of words) is Vlad the Impaler, whom the character Dracula is based upon. You don't even want to know what is involved in impaling people (of course you do, just like slowing down to see the trafiic accident).

The best part is that each story can be read and finished in 20 mintes...before bed, on a train, etc. Which is great because it seems that every history book is 400 pages long. After reading some of these stories, I have selectivley bought more detailed books about the era in which the people lived.

I really like this "short story" format.