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- Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live
Selected Product: | Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live, ISBN:9780061749445 | |  |
| | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com An unstoppable collection of the most hardcore figures who ever strapped on chain mail and ran screaming into battle Throughout history—from the bone-crushing age of antiquity to the sack-tearing modern era—there have been larger-than-life ass-kickers with a natural talent for unleashing their epic bloodlust on anyone who crossed them. They built empires, smashed armies, and ravaged civilizations for wealth, glory, and ultimate supremacy. Sometimes villains, sometimes heroes, sometimes criminally insane, they had one thing in common: They were all . . . Badass! Chandragupta Maurya
An Indian warlord who commanded an army of drunken war elephants and employed an elite detachment of highly trained female bodyguards Peter Francisco
An unsung hero of the American Revolution, this powerful giant battled the British with a massive five-foot-long broadsword Wolf the Quarrelsome
A mysterious barbarian leader who only appears in history twice—and both times hes kicking someones ass Bhanbhagta Gurung
A fearless Gurkha who won the Victoria Cross by clearing out six Japanese foxholes with nothing more than grenades, a bayonet, and a knife From Alexander the Great to George S. Patton, from Genghis Khan to Bruce Lee, this pantheon of ass-kicking awesomeness should inspire you to quit your stupid job and dive headfirst into a new career as a professional badass. |
Average Customer Rating:   A relentless onslaught of crotch references and historical inaccuraccies Unfortunately, I trusted a review from a source I normally can put faith in. Sadly, they did not mention the pathetic lack of variety, vocabulary and intelligence in this book, and I wasted $12.
While the constant, ever-repeated references to genitalia could be excused as the author's attempt to tap into the college frat boy pool of spending power, it would require the book actually be researched well enough to provide an accurate look at history. Unfortunately, it doesn't even go this far, with classic misconceptions and historical inaccuracies splattered across almost every page. While Mr. Thompson does list an impressive amount of books in the back, it's clear from the number of fictional events he's included (and, of course, the lack of inline citations) that he just went into a library and wrote down the titles - he clearly never opened them up.
The book is not only exceedingly poor, it is actually insulting to anyone who considers themselves even an armchair historian. Entertaining Read, That Will Teach You Stuff Too! There are some great and fascinating to read true stories out there. Mostly they get recounted in a boring facts and information type way or in a school teacher/university lecturer boring tone but there are a few people out there who know how to tell a tale. If you're going to teach someone something you've got to be entertaining in your delivery or they'll just tune out and mentally go to sleep or just stop reading. The couple of page synopsises on 40 of history's toughest men and women are great for kids, adults, and well anyone who has any interest in history really. In fact it's probably a great book to get those who aren't to want to learn more about the 40 historic figures inside and others as well!
This book's text is written in a style like you wish you'd been able to do for those history assignments back when you were at school. Humorous in awe hero worshipping slang type text explains the life of 40 individuals from all "sides" in war, genders, and periods of the timeline. Some you will have heard of, others you won't have but all their life stories are interesting.
You'll also learn about other stuff to like that the unicorn in mythology wasn't something for little princesses, it was in fact a much feared unstoppable killing machine and was unbeatable in combat by knights, and other animals. The only way for them to be stopped was for a beautiful maiden to take her shirt off. The different things you can shoot out of a catapult, the difference between the Gauls and the French and much, much more!
Read this book, you'll not only be entertained, but you'll learn something as well!
Don't be a douchenozzle, snag this book Short review: I laughed my ass off, and I learned something here today.
Long review: Absolutely hysterical, and a true blue-steel education on badassery. It's like a history book as taught by Professor Dirty Harry and his teacher's aide, a .44 automag loaded with hollow-tip knowledge. Anyone who would give this a one-star review needs to lighten up. Seriously. This is a comedy book that actually teaches about some bad-ass historical figures. These are guys and gals with gigantic, bulletproof brass balls that could be mounted in an industrial slingshot and used to end the Cold War forever, one shot into the Kremlin, and ka-boom -- nuclear face-meltage. Okay, the Cold War is over, but you get my point. Don't lie. You know you get my point.
Just the exchange between King Leonidas and Xerxes is worth the price of the book. Everything else is simply gravy.
Does it use slang? Uh, yeah, that's the point. The book is funny. Hello? One-stars? Refer to paragraph two about the "lighten up" part.
Once again, loved it, and it eviscerated me with history humor. Way better than the website Sure, part of the content is available for free on the author website, but the book really worth his price for the illustrations, the additional content and the pleasure to read on paper ! YES Vikings didn't have horned helmets. That's about as close as I can get to any sort of criticism of this book. I honestly hope and believe that people will form a new religion based around the writing of Ben Thompson, and we all had better fall in line. | |
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