Covers some fifty mad rulers with an appendix by nationality and one for royal lineages. Intriguing. ( )

Very interesting, concise and amazingly disturbing. Reminded me a bit of our "royalty" of today: Brittany, Mel, Lindsay, and the like. Minus the inbreading factor of course, and the mass murder. ( )

The first line of the introduction reads, "They don't come more appalling than aristocrats." This is a look at about forty royals who behaved very badly. Included are the ones you know, like Vlad the Impaler and Elizabeth Bathory, but there are the less famous, like Charles VI of France, who had iron rods sewn into his clothes because he believed he was made of glass and was afraid of shattering. Philip V of Spain became so mad that he believed his feet were too mismatched for him to walk, he attacked people and bit chunks from himself. Anna I of Russia had overweight woman force-fed until they fainted and made noblemen impersonate chickens.

I devoured this book quickly as it's so interesting, but I have to take half a point off because some of the people weren't mad, so didn't belong in the book. Rulers such as King Henry VIII were cruel or selfish, while others suffered from depression. So many of these bios start off with the fact that the subject didn't have much of a chance at being normal due to the amount of in-breeding for generations. ( )

Very interesting, concise and amazingly disturbing. Reminded me a bit of our "royalty" of today: Brittany, Mel, Lindsay, and the like. Minuse the inbreading factor of course, and the mass murder. ( )

Changed my mind a bit on this one. I don't really get the organization--by region would have made lot of sense but what's in this makes a sort of sense that's...not. Also, just because a person is power hungry and likes sex doesn't really make them "mad". Eh. A little too much like National Enquirer than anything historically reliable.
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There were some crazy, crazy people in charge of countries. Fascinating book to pick up and flip through every so often, but not one to read all the way through in a sitting.

The only real downside--a lack of dates throughout. Birth and death dates are given (when available) but it's difficult to follow some of the events without key dates included throughout the vignettes of each life. ( )