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Twisted History brings to life the incredible stories of 32 historical figures -- murderers, assassins and traitors who embraced the dark side, and martyrs and innocents who paid with their lives in the pursuit of good. All changed world history.
The book is lavishly illustrated with stunning illustrations and period photographs. Accessible text and fact boxes describe evil and angelic acts across the centuries, like Judas, whose name would come to define betrayal, Joan of Arc, victorious virgin soldier and patron saint of France, and Ren� Goupil, tortured and martyred by Native Americans, who became the first American saint.
Twisted History puts readers face to face with vile villains and true heroes. They include:
- William Wallace, the Scottish hero who was hanged, drawn and quartered by the English for high treason (c.1270-1305)
- Vlad the Impaler, who enjoyed torturing and impaling his victims (1431-76)
- Bernie Madoff (1938- ), architect of the biggest financial scam in history, a $65-billion Ponzi scheme that shattered banks, insurance companies and private investors
- Kazuo Taoka, boss of the most powerful and merciless Japanese yakuza gang (1913-81).
Twisted History is an engaging, informative and gripping read for all teen and adult readers.
- Sales Rank: #802885 in Books
- Published on: 2015-02-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.38" h x .50" w x 7.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 176 pages
Review
One of the greatest strengths of Twisted History is the extensive inclusion of appropriate historical images. Many of these are reproduced in colour and include engravings, paintings, newspaper details, photographs and reproductions of letters and other documents. Most of the graphics are accompanied by varying amounts of detail as to what they depict and who created them. Overall, the text and images serve the reader very well. Sidebars used in many of the biographies add context by relating similar crimes or criminals or by expanding upon a topic noted. An index is also included. Recommended. (Val Ken Lem Canadian Review of Materials 2015-05-01)
About the Author
Howard Watson is a writer and editor who has written factual books for adults and children, including The Atlas of History's Greatest Heroes and Villains, Awesome Facts and Gruesome Facts. He has contributed to a range of websites, magazines, and newspapers, including the Independent.
Excerpt. � Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
From the beginning of human existence there has been a darkness that has accompanied almost all the major events in the world: the tales are stained with murder, assassination, torture, betrayal, lust, revenge, remorselessness, and boundless ambition. The darkness is not unique to narratives of serial killers, gangsters, torturers, and assassins, and their sometimes almost unspeakable depravity. Close examination of the life of almost every king or queen, emperor, politician, and even priests and saints, reveals its own twisted history.
Different characteristics of twisted history are borne out in the three sections of this book--Treachery & Torture, Saints & Sinners, and Murder & Mayhem--although each of the themes bleeds, quite literally, into the others.
Traitors-In A Cause?
Treachery & Torture focuses on those who have shaken free of the constraints of honor and humanity, and embraced the dark side. Brutus, Guy Fawkes, Benedict Arnold, and Pierre Laval are all marked as the greatest of traitors against each of their own states, deviously plotting against the lives of their fellow countrymen or leaders. And yet there is often light and shade within the twists of their connivance: Brutus and Fawkes turned to assassination to uphold their own beliefs; Laval, the French prime minister who collaborated with the Nazis, believed, until his dying breath, that he was helping his own country; and Arnold . . . well, he betrayed America because of injured pride and financial gain, but even he had previously fought with valor and risked his life for his country.
Then there are those whose actions are darker still: the men implicated in mass torture and who seemed to revel in the gore, such as Adolf Eichmann, the cold-hearted architect of the Holocaust; Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's diabolical henchman; and Gilles de Rais, the mass murderer of children. The dark depravity of some of the instruments of torture and execution is highlighted: the rack, the strappado, and, perhaps the most nausea-inducing form of execution, being hanged, drawn, and quartered. This method of dispatch, sanctioned by the English state as the punishment for treason, deliberately kept victims alive as long as possible so they could witness their own emasculation and disembowelment. Saints & Sinners explores the lives both of those who were more sinned against than sinning, and those who just concentrated on the sinning. Martyrs, ranging from tormented religious saints to leading twentieth-century figures who were slain for promoting peace and justice, rub shoulders with those who mercilessly pursued religious persecution: Emperor Nero, who torched Christians to illuminate his garden; Torquemada, who victimized Jews; and Hitler, who carried persecution into a new realm of darkness--all revealed the darkest shade of the degeneracy of which humans are capable.
Murderers, Gangsters, Assassins
Nothing strikes fear into a population more than the threat of a serial killer, who cunningly defies the law to strike again and again, making us all too aware of the fragile and perilous nature of our existence. Murder & Mayhem uncovers the lives and modus operandi of the killers who snatched the innocent, dragged them into a world of pain, and extinguished them, only to evade capture and set off in pursuit of a fresh victim. Like serial killers, gangsters such as Al Capone have the power to cause mayhem by terrorizing the world with lawlessness, striking at the heart of both the individual and society's desperate need for security. Presidential assassins John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald also rent fissures in the foundations of civilization by snuffing out the lives of two much heralded and heroic American heads of state.
Unreliable Narrators
History is twisted and fortunes are changed by the remorseless characters, driven by greed, evil, or insanity, who transgress the boundaries of humanity, but the telling of history itself is sometimes twisted, too. As we assess the dark reputations and crimes of the historical players, we must always remember that history is written by the victors: an idea extemporized by French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault and many others to the point that it has become a truism of historiography (the writing of history). Historians have their own dark reasons for contorting the tales of previous leaders to make them appear as monsters. Richard III, often regarded as the most treacherous and evil king of England, is to some extent the victim of historians' desire for grace and favor from his royal successors. His crown was taken by force by the Tudors, who only had a weak claim on the throne; contemporary historians became the agents of Tudor lies, blackening Richard's name in order to make the new dynasty seem less tyrannical and more valorous. To some extent, the reputations of Nero and Vlad the Impaler suffered in a similar manner.
Facts are also the victims of exaggeration and salaciousness on the part of chroniclers and historians. It is not enough that the serial killer Thug Behram killed well over a hundred people: he is associated with the deaths of 928, so the latter figure is often misused as the total number of his personal victims. History is also twisted with regard to H.H. Holmes; apparently the twenty-seven murders to which he confessed are not enough, and he is sometimes said to have killed 200 despite the absence of any evidence for such a huge figure.
There is a natural human thrill taken in reading of debauchery and vice. Perhaps more than any other historian, the Roman Suetonius played on this and reveled in the salacious, fleshing out the skeletal facts about emperors such as Caligula and Nero with a weight of conjectural claims about the sheer depths of their vice. Suetonius was always willing to conjure more darkness, to add a new, terrible twist to history. But even within the exaggeration, there is almost always the kernel of truth.
History as these pages reveal, is twisted, dark, and soaked in blood.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Amongst the more cerebral and literary coffee table reads
By Lynette McClenaghan
Howard Watson applies a deft hand to 32 true stories of both famous and infamous ‘traitors, sadists and psycho’s’. He offers factual accounts and fascinating insights into the lives, motives and exploits of the some of most evil humans over the past two centuries from Brutus to Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated J F Kennedy. He also includes and examines the opposite side of the coin; saints and other exemplars of humanity. Twisted History is a great general read for those who are interested in history, but prefer bite sized chunks of interesting and enlightening facts. The material is accessible and stimulating without being simplistic.
Whilst Watson delivers a comprehensive snapshot of torturers, sinners, murderers and saints he also includes other relevant historical figures and the context of that period. For example, Adolf Hitler is an instantly recognisable villain, but Watson gives important details about how Hitler and his party weren’t simply the driving force behind persecution of Jewish people. Hitler also dragged an entire nation into a state of national disaster. In addition, this vignette charts Hitler’s brutality as beginning long before the Holocaust. Despite the grim material presented in Twisted History, Watson’s text is engaging and at times humorous. He always manages to have the last laugh at the villain. The illustrations are spectacular with the combination of primary sources, sketches and other artwork which resonate with the villain’s exploits, time and place.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Twisted History
By R. Amber Bannon
Twisted History, is an excellent overview of key well known and lesser know historic figures. Some are known for their good deeds they did,even after they lead a life of murder or other illegal crimes. Others are know for their part in the Civil War ,some are priests that diefied their faiths, and some are respondsible the Holocaust . Either way there's plenty of subjects to pick from for everyone. The book it's self is beatifully done, there are illustrations, documents,photos, backround on all of these historic people before they became well know. The pages of the book are made to like their very old pages,with ink blots, dried blood,and finger prints on the backrounds of each back. It's divided into sections,so you can easily find what you need and the binding for this hardcover is well done and will hold up for a long time. It isn't very heavy,so you can easily carry it around. I highy recomend this seller and item. It's also a good price.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Rogue's Gallery of Saints & Mostly Sinners!
By Mike O'Connor
Howard Watson's TWISTED HISTORY offers a guided magical misery tour to 32 of history's most famous psychos, crooks, creeps, charlatans, saints, sinners and assorted 'visionaries.' A 2015 Metro Books release, Watson's book offers entertaining, informative bios of some of history's lesser lights.
Divided into chapters on 'Treachery & Torture,' 'Saints & Sinners' and 'Murder & Mayhem,' Watson provides write-ups on such 'fun people' like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Joan of Arc, Bernie Madoff, Judas Iscariot, Blackbeard, Richard III, Al Capone, Lee Harvey Oswald, Pierre Laval and Vlad the Impaler. Write-ups range from four to six page with accompanying b&w and color photographs, illustrations and artwork.
History buffs will enjoy TWISTED HISTORY. It provides the straight skinny on thirty-odd famous - and/or infamous - men and women. Recommended.
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