The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder

Book Overview

Murder provided public entertainment for the Caesars of ancient Rome, and executions drew huge, enthusiastic crowds in Elizabethan England and at the Bastille in revolutionary France. The thirst for... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786707143
• ISBN13: 9780786707140
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Running Press
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

Big, fat book chock full of lurid Murder headlines

One of the problems with Mammoth books is that they don't take the time to delve deep into their subject matter. Each pages (and there are a LOT of pages) contains the bare minimum of information about the subject (in this case Murder. It does a reasonable job of showing the progression of murder from the 1800 thru today's murder headlines. But rarely does it try to explain why, or who, or even try to separate spree killers from serial killers to fetish killers. You get the basics; but it left me wanting the whole enchilada.

If I can still keep reading it...

I thought that this book was insightful and very informative...it may not have gone to every detail of each of the murders, murderers and crimes...it kept me reading on and on...and I still read...If I can still read the book over and over, then to me its a very good book.

FRIGHTENING

It's unfathomable the evil that man is capable of. Yes, I've read the sensational headlines of serial killers, mass murderers, etc. but this book gives full details of the realization of these crimes. To read blow by blow descriptions of the paths that these individuals take is shocking to say the least; especially the descriptions of the cannibalism. I like gory, horror stories but true life horror and gore is terrifying. A book not for the feint hearted. Even though I cringed throughout the book, it was like looking at a scary movie with my hands over my eyes - I had to keep peeking just to see what would happen. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Good Overview of the Subject

I was able to find more than a couple of crimes that I was unfamillar with - unusal due to the amount of reading on the subject I've done. Doesn't bog the reader down with too much information on any one crime but gives you a good 'picture' of each. My only complaint is that when looking for info on a specifc crime, the reader may have to search more than one section of the book for all the information avaliable.