"Entertaining and informative. Full of offbeat, fascinating detail." -- Sunday Telegraph "These sparkling biographical essays include all the usual suspects. It's a tour of the good, the bad and the ugly." -- Mail on Sunday (U.K.) "Compulsive reading." -- The Times (London) "We do not shudder at the depths to which men and women throughout history have sunk, but experience a piquant relish .

a book that reminds us how thin the veneer of civilisation is." -- The Times "A survey of great historical figures favours villainy over goodness. A compilation of short biographical profiles . catering to our appalled fascination with evil. Monsters outnumber heroes. Stalin, the subject of Montefiore's superb two-volume biography, is the prototype for many of the maniacal autocrats whose rages and rampages are described here. A strutting parade of psychopathic dictators, warlords, malevolent dwarves. Montefiore finds room for a few gods, one or two secular saints, American founding fathers, Lincoln and Churchill, and a smattering artists and scientists, but their achievements hardly manage to maintain the pretence of civilisation.

What excites Montefiore is villainy . and he does this with wicked verve." -- The Observer "Comprehensive, chilling and highly compelling. A first-class chronologically arranged catalogue that engages as it teaches." -- Daily Express.