Was Ivan the Terrible really so terrible? Did Attila the Hun really die of a nosebleed? And who was England's most incompetent executioner? Anyone who thinks that history is just a bunch of boring names and dates will find his or her comeuppance here in Jacob Field's brisk survey of three millennia of man's inhumanity to man. Erudite and informative—and complemented by vintage illustrations—these short, anecdotal texts introduce such supreme sadists as Caligula, Countess Bathory, and Leopold II of Belgium, alongside such famed victims as Joan of Arc, Captain Cook, and Spartacus. Among the horrible events (manmade or otherwise) discussed here are the Lisbon Earthquake, the French Revolution, the Black Death, and the Civil War's Fort Pillow Massacre.