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|summary=Definitely not torture, but this compilation of the darker side to our ages does bludgeon you by the end with its welter of facts and stories.

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While other authors have made the case for mankind easing off in the destruction stakes recently, and becoming less hostile, bloodthirsty and cruel than in the past, it doesn’t mean that our global history is not littered with detail, about mutinies, massacres and murders. Mr Field here gathers the gamut of gore from the time when the only people writing down their history were the Chinese, up until the late nineteenth century, and covers the planet in search of slicing, dicing and deathly devices. It certainly lives up to its title.