History's Worst Dictators: A Short Guide to the Most Brutal Rulers, From Emperor Nero to Ivan the Terrible

Nasty, brutish, and short. This is the way English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the living conditions into which humans inevitably fall without a strong, central authority. However, Hobbes would agree that living under a brutal dictator could lead to the same conditions. He would know -- he lived a century after the bloody reign of Henry VIII, 150 years after Spanish conquistadors witnessed Montezuma II offering up thousands of human sacrifices, and four centuries after Genghis Khan rode throughout Eurasia and left behind enough death and destruction to depopulate major parts of the globe. This exciting new book from historian Michael Rank looks at the lives and times of the worst dictators in history. You will learn about their reigns and violent actions, such as... - Emperor Nero's murder of family members, suspected arson of Rome, and widespread execution of religious minorities, which caused many early Christians to believe that he was the Antichrist - Herod the Great's use of crowd slaughter, family killings, and even infanticide to hold on to his rule - Genghis Khan's military conquests that killed tens of millions and caused millions more to flee their homes in fear, resulting in forests reclaiming abandoned farmland and carbon levels plummeting, actually creating man-made global cooling - Vlad the Impaler (also known as Vlad Dracul, the namesake of the vampire) and his use of impalement to kill more than 20,000 victims, even causing a superior army turn around and avoid fighting him when they witnessed his carnage These leaders and 6 others fill this book. Learn about how they earned their reputation as the worst dictators in history and why they are so infamous in popular culture today.