Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live
Selected Book Details
- Paperback
- Author: Ben Thompson
- Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
- Release Date: November 2009
- ISBN-10: 0061749443
- ISBN-13: 9780061749445
- List Price: $16.99
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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon
Summary
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 Peter Francisco Wolf the Quarrelsome Bhanbhagta Gurung 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. |
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Testosterone in paper form.
Rating: 
Warning: this book will suck the estrogen right out of you. I would say it was the chronicles of manliness but some of the people covered are women who are apparently more manly than I can ever hope to be. My pregnant wife read this book and the baby spontaneously turned from a girl to a boy. Just sayin'.
The writing style is humorous and light, but admittedly it sometimes borders on juvenile. There are obvious embellishments (I've never actually seen someone crushed under the weight of testicles, but there are things on earth I haven't seen). However, I give the writing style a thumbs up because the author presented a lot of good history in a form that would even keep the attention of a 13 year old boy.
The author does have an odd fetish with faces. He mentioned "face" 105 times in the book, mainly accompanying words like "crush", "stab", or "burn." Oorah!
A Relentless Onslaught of bad grammar, embellished stories, and farcicle facts
Rating:
While the authors writing style is not exactly what I would consider top notch, I can see where some people would find it funny. Unfortunately, when put into embellished and sometimes completely wrong stories masquerading as history, it then becomes offensive and immature. Several of the "baddass" warriors included in this book are named so based on exploits that either have none or little proof of actually happening.
The book strives to use internet humor (obviously culled from the author's 5 years of running his website) to present history, and while the humor works for those with a more immature taste, the history aspect utterly fails. I am not sure where Ben Thompson did his research on these historical figures, but it seems like wikipedia might be his most prestigious resource.
Avoid if you are truly interested in historical figures. However, if you want to read what comes across as a teenage boys fantasy of what it must have been like to be a warlord (with a little over the top 90's action movie thrown in for extra measure), you may want to consider renting a movie rather then repeating this book... which gets very repetitive after the umpteenth time that the reason a person was "badass" is because they "kicked ass".
Book of the Year
Rating:
This is history as told by Lord Kenneth Clark--if Kenneth Clark were a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter jacked up on steroids. Ben Thompson deserves a place of his own in this pantheon of heroes for single-handedly saving History from the dustbin of history. Best book I've read all year!
awesome
Rating:
I love this book and the website! It is a great mix of real life and screen/literary badasses, told in a very entertaining, lively fashion. The style is such that you actually feel like the author is sitting in the room with you, telling the story and acting it out at the same time. Some of the real life historical people he mentions are seriously badass, performing such incredible acts of crazy courage that it seems foolhardy, and only sheer luck allowed them to be remembered as heroes and not fools. The website is a must - lots more stories and some are expanded over the book (one personal fave - Voytek the soldier bear). Can't wait for a volume 2!
Hilarious history of warriors
Rating:
If you love the history of warriors and can take colorful language, this book is for you. A perfect melding of historical tales of bravery and awesomeness written in the way you would talk about it with buddies over beers. Enjoy.
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