"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