Monday, January 6, 2014

The Most Evil Men and Women in History

Title: The Most Evil Men and Women in History
Author: Miranda Twiss
Standalone
Number of Pages: 189
Date Read: 1/6/13
Genre: History, Non- Fiction


Synopsis (Found on Goodreads.com)

A catalog of horrific evil, from the 1st century AD to the present day evil is a fact of life. We can see it, not only in the reigns of Stalin & Hitler, but also in everyday crimes like murder, rape & assault--quite apart from the millions of lives brutalized by political or religious oppression, poverty, disease & starvation. One factor unites the 16 featured in this book & the evil acts they committed: they all had unlimited power over the people whose lives they controlled. Their reigns a terror cover a time-span of nearly 2000 years, from the rule of Caligula over the Roman Empire starting in 37AD, to the genocide of educated Cambodians under Pol Pot during the 1980's. Motivated by power, religion, political belief or by sadism & lust, sometimes by insanity, they've become bywords for terror.


My Review:

This book is full of sadistic, psychotic killers, most of whom were unfortunately leaders of a country or some how important in society. There are 16 truly evil people in this book. Many of them are depraved, sick sociopaths whose number of killings reach the thousands and even millions. While reading about their evil deeds and their insane thoughts, I was thoroughly disgusted. Many of the leader of the countries had political ideas that were so stupid I couldn't believe that people actually followed them. Its hard to believe that psychos like these people existed and unfortunately still exist today. While the people disgusted me, I still liked the book. After all, even the author writes in her introduction, that evil is fascinating.

People in this book are 

1. Caligula~ "The Schizophrenic Emperor"
2. Nero ~"Fifth Emperor of Rome"
3. Attila the Hun~ "The Storm from the East"
4. King John~ "A callous, Cold Hearted Monarch"
5. Torquemada~ "The Spanish Inquisitor"
6. Prince Vlad Dracula~ "The Impaler"
7. Francisco Pizzaro~ "Conqueror of the Incas"
8. Bloody Mary 1~ "A Catholic Queen in a Protestant Country"
9. Ivan IV, The Terrible~ "Tsar of all Russias
10. Elizabeth, Countess Bathory~ "Countess Dracula"
11. Rasputin~ "The Mad Monk who brought down a Dynasty"
12. Josef Stalin~ "A Twentieth Century Tyrant"
13. Adolf Hitler~ "The Father of the Final Solution"
14. Ilse Kock~ "The Bitch of Buchenwald"
15. Pol Pot~ "Architect of Genocide"
16. Idi Amin~ "The Butcher of East Africa"

Rating:
A+  

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