The Only History Book You'll Ever Need to Read

If I was only ever to do one review of anything for this blog, it would be for The Great Big Book of Horrible Things, by Matthew White. If you seem unsettled, or skeptical with the title, don't; I really don’t think anything else I would potentially recommend would surpass or even equal the impact that this book would have on you, as it did for me when it was first bought for me as a throwaway Christmas present five years ago.

Neither a macabre coffee table book nor an impossibly dense collection of stats, this book is essentially an editorialized reference book. Now that may seem like a contradiction, and in most cases it would be, along with being not all that interesting. But White, a self-described “numbers freak” with a gift for historical writing masterfully weaves bold classifications with sober analysis and goofy commentary to create an utterly unique work, one that almost seems unrecognizable from others. White's goal in this book is to bring the best justice he can to the countless of overshadowed or altogether forgotten victims in historical killings, and those efforts shine bright. Horrible Things is credited by distinguished psychologist Steven Pinker, who provides the foreword, as the "the most comprehensive, disinterested and statistically nuanced estimates available." Ever since I’ve read it, I’ve tried to emulate White’s approach and style and I’ve proudly cited it multiple times in my own reports.

In assessing history's deadliest man-made events, White, who has no formal training in history or statistics, approaches the subject with a scientific method. He rejects consensuses about the death toll of a given event, instead going straight back to primary and secondary sources. He throws out the highest and lowest numbers and plugs in the median. How does he get these sources, you ask? "The short answer is money," White replies. "Even if a general is reluctant to tell the newspapers how many men he lost in a bungled offensive, he still has to tell the accountants to drop 4,000 men from the payroll... Head counts (and by extension, body counts) are not just an academic exercise; they have been an important part of government financing for centuries." The length of each chapter is proportional to the deadliness of the event.

However, it's not the numbers that are of the most interest in this book, even if it is the selling point. It's how White incorporates them into his writing. Each chapter is categorized rather surprisingly, and loaded with unexpected, juicy terms of White's invention, like 'atrocitology,' 'multicides,' and 'hemoclysm' that capture the reader's imagination much more than dry terms like 'genocide.' His commentary captures the ironies, tragedies, and downright absurdities of history. Here are some examples, starting with his chapter on Timur:

TIMUR

Death toll: 17 million
Rank: 9
Type: world conqueror
Broad dividing line: Timur vs. everyone he could get to
Location: central Asia, the eye of the hurricane being Samarkand
Who usually gets the most blame: Rimur; also called Tamburlaine (old version) or Tamerlane (newer version) from his insulting nickname, Timur Lenk ("the Lame")
Another damn: Mongol invasion

Here's an example of White describing Saladin In his Crusades chapter (3 million deaths):

In reality, Saladin's sense of honor was flexible... []Two leading crusaders were brought to him in chains. He fed the first one, explaining that the rules of hospitality now forbade him from killing a prisoner who had been given food and drink by his captor. Another prisoner... lunged for a cup of wine and downed it before anyone could stop him. [He] thought, Aha! I'm safe! But Saladin killed him anyway because no one likes a smartass.

White understands, however, the issues and contention that really do affect our modern life and knows when to be serious, not tolerating some minority opinions. Believe it or not, there's a sizable minority of people who believe that the Western democracies fought on the wrong side of WWII (along with the faction that denies the Holocaust). White responds with this: 

In this case, revisionists seem to forget the world went to war against Hitler because he was dangerous, not because he was evil. This is an important distinction in international relations. You can do whatever you want inside your own country, but when you start invading your neighbors, the rest of the world gets jumpy. No matter how brutal Stalin may have been to his own people, he was content to stay inside the borders of the Soviet Union. By the time Stalin began grabbing small countries for himself, the West was already committed to war with Hitler. The choice wasn't between fighting Hitler or Stalin. The choice was to fight Hitler or both of them.

Despite his unorthodox form and his use of black humor, it’s understandable to think that reading White’s book about humanity’s worst achievements might get a little depressing after a while. However, with each chapter I absorbed, I got steadily more excited until I felt downright enlightened by the end. This is because what happens as you travel across time and the world in White’s book is that you feel a remarkable sense of discovery. Because of White’s information, style, and arguments, you really do feel that you understand not just history but humanity so much better. White passes the historian’s ultimate test with flying colors and imprints it on the reader: He effectively makes history relevant to the reader, and uses it to better understand our present and prepare for the future. It worked for me and it will surely work for you. 

For more on Matthew White visit his website (don't be fooled, it deliberately looks old-school) or the New York Times review of Horrible Things.

To check out the book itself, click here.