I’m not even sure any more where I bought this book. It clocks in at over 700 pages, friends, and it took me almost three weeks to read. As a matter of fact, I had to take a break in the middle of it to read I Ought To Be In Pictures when I was getting depressed from all the stories of murder and mayhem.
First off, I’d like to say that this collection is one of the most poorly edited and produced books I’ve come across in some time. A cheap edition published in Great Britain, this book features gritty paper, a cover that’s close enough to a pizza box in quality to merit the comparison, pages cut by a dull blade, and partially washed out ink in many places. Additionally, the editing job was poor; many sidebar two-paragraph anecdotes inserted to break up sections actually retold the stories of incidents and crimes told elsewhere in the book. In the case of Black Bart, an old West stagecoach robber, he has his own named section in one chapter and, later in the chapter, is recounted as a part of a section about the most notorious Western robbers. By “is recounted,” I mean the same seven or eight paragraphs appear twice in the same chapter, separated by only a handful of pages. This book definitely doesn’t represent an academic or thoughtful work in any sense of the imagination. It’s completely a case of slapping together a large number of pruriently-interesting things and hoping to make as much from them as possible.
Still, it contains quite the compendium of famous, infamous, and trivial crimes of murder, genocide, fraud, theivery, and whatnot. The first couple hundred pages focus on mass murderers and genocidal tyrants, which led to my distaste to which I alluded. It did, however, give me a little historical perspective on the “disproportionate” and violent doings of the Western military, particularly the American and Israeli militaries, in the last 100 years. I mean, come on, the Huns and the Khans and the Ottomans were capable of real genocide, not having small units go nuts or ordnance going errant. When we lose perspective on what animal mankind really is, I guess it’s easy to think that our civilization isn’t better than the worst man has to offer.
Is the book a worthwhile read? Well, if you’re looking for macabre trivia–and who isn’t? But take plenty of breaks to retain your perspective that all of mankind isn’t like this book depicts.
