The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities

To my mother, who gave me my sense of humor,

and my father, who gave me my sense of justice

CONTENTS

List of Maps

Foreword by Steven Pinker

Introduction

Second Persian
War

Alexander the Great

Age of Warring States

First Punic War

Qin Shi Huang Di

Second Punic War

Gladiatorial Games

Roman Slave Wars

War of the Allies

Third Mithridatic War

Gallic War

Ancient Innumeracy

Xin Dynasty

Roman-Jewish Wars

The Three Kingdoms of China

Fall of the Western Roman Empire

Justinian

Goguryeo-Sui Wars

Mideast Slave Trade

An Lushan Rebellion

Mayan Collapse

The Crusades

Religious Killing

Fang La Rebellion

Genghis Khan

Albigensian Crusade

Hulagu’s Invasion

Hundred Years War

Fall of the Yuan Dynasty

Bahmani-Vijayanagara War

Timur

Chinese Conquest of Vietnam

Aztec Human Sacrifice

Atlantic Slave Trade

Conquest of the Americas

Genocide

Burma-Siam Wars

French Wars of Religion

Russo-Tatar War

The Time of Troubles

Thirty Years War

Collapse of the Ming Dynasty

Cromwell’s Invasion of Ireland

Aurangzeb

Great Turkish War

Peter the Great

Great Northern War

War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Austrian Succession

Sino-Dzungar War

Seven Years War

Napoleonic Wars

World Conquerors

Haitian Slave Revolt

Mexican War of Independence

Shaka

French Conquest of Algeria

Taiping Rebellion

Crimean War

Panthay Rebellion

American Civil War

Hui Rebellion

War of the Triple Alliance

Franco-Prussian War

Famines in British India

Russo-Turkish War

Mahdi Revolt

Congo Free State

Cuban Revolution

The Western Way of War

Mexican Revolution

First World War

Russian Civil War

Greco-Turkish War

Chinese Civil War

Joseph Stalin

Crazed Tyrants

Italo-Ethiopian War

Spanish Civil War

Second World War

Expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe

French Indochina War

Partition of India

Mao Zedong

Korean War

North Korea

The Black Chapter of Communism

Algerian War of Independence

War in the Sudan

Vietnam War

The Cold War

Indonesian Purge

Biafran War

Bengali Genocide

Idi Amin

Mengistu Haile

Postwar Vietnam

Democratic Kampuchea

Mozambican Civil War

Angolan Civil War

Ugandan Bush War

Post-Colonial Africa

Soviet-Afghan War

Saddam Hussein

Iran-Iraq War

Sanctions against Iraq

Somalian Chaos

Rwandan Genocide

Second Congo War

Ranking: The One Hundred
Deadliest Multicides

What I Found: Analysis

What I Found: Raw Numbers

Appendix 1
Disputing the Top One Hundred

Appendix 2
The Hemoclysm

Acknowledgments

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index