The Top 10 Evilest People in History

Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" follows the adventurous journey of Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman, who wagers he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. Accompanied by his French valet, Passepartout, Fogg embarks on a thrilling race against time, encountering various challenges and exciting adventures along the way. The novel explores themes of adventure, determination, and the clash between tradition and modernity. Verne's detailed descriptions of different cultures and landscapes add to the story's immersive quality. The novel's enduring popularity stems from its captivating plot and timeless themes.

This book is a monumental study based on extensive documentation, including testimony from Nazi leaders and concentration camp inmates, diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, and private letters. Shirer spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation to create a definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in human history. The book explores how Hitler's regime came to power, its impact on Germany and the world, and its eventual downfall. It is widely acclaimed as the definitive work on Nazi Germany and has won several awards, including the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

In this book, Paul Johnson scrutinizes the moral and judgmental credentials of several leading intellectuals, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Karl Marx, Henrik Ibsen, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, Bertolt Brecht, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others. Johnson questions their respect for truth, their application of public principles to private lives, and their loyalty to friends. The book highlights the contradictions and flaws in these intellectuals, often revealing hypocrisy, Messianic complexes, and cruel behavior, raising concerns about their ability to advise humanity on moral and societal issues.

Published on November 24, 1859, 'On the Origin of Species' by Charles Darwin is a seminal work in scientific literature. The book presents a comprehensive theory of evolution, arguing that species evolve over generations through the process of natural selection. Darwin supported his theory with evidence collected during his voyage on the HMS Beagle, as well as from subsequent research, correspondence, and experimentation. The book addresses the struggle for existence, the variability of species, and the principle of divergence, explaining how natural selection leads to the adaptation and diversification of life on Earth. It has been a cornerstone of evolutionary biology and has had significant impacts on both scientific and public discourse.

Ian Kershaw's 'Hitler: A Biography' is an abridged version of his two-volume series, 'Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris' and 'Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis'. The book provides a detailed and nuanced portrait of Adolf Hitler, from his origins as a failed artist in Vienna to his final days in the Berlin bunker. Kershaw draws on a wide range of sources, including previously untapped materials like Goebbels's diaries, to explore Hitler's rise to power and the societal conditions that facilitated it. The biography emphasizes Kershaw's 'Working towards the Führer' theory, which suggests that Hitler's subordinates often took initiative to fulfill his broadly outlined wishes, leading to radicalization and atrocities. The book also critically evaluates the complex character of Hitler and the broader historical context of Nazi Germany.