Swindlers Necromancers and RealLife Vampires An Unconventional Guide to History eBook Michael Rank
Download As PDF : Swindlers Necromancers and RealLife Vampires An Unconventional Guide to History eBook Michael Rank 
From the #1 best-selling author of "History's Greatest Generals" comes a compendium of history that focuses on the strange, odd, little-known, or forgotten figures in history that deserve our attention.
The 48 chapters cover absolutely everything in history. Well, not everything -- that would be impossible for anyone not named Bill Bryson. Instead it covers everything time period, from the myth of Atlantis, to Vlad Dracul (the real-life Count Dracula), to the legacy of Kim Jong-Il and his golfing abilities. Discover forgotten moments in history, such as the U.S. governments attempts to use camels to ferry equipment across the Southwest in the 1840s, or real-life Dr. Frankenstein, Joseph Conrad Dippel, who loved to apply electrical shock to cadavers. Find out about the greatest impostors in history, such as George Psalamanzar, who convinced all of Europe in the 1700s that he was actually from Taiwan, a place where people lived underground, walked on their hands, and occasionally cannibalized each other.
Each chapter is written in a small chunk. Think of this book as your Reader's Digest approach to history, but much more off the wall, and far fewer jokes your grandfather would chuckle at.
Swindlers Necromancers and RealLife Vampires An Unconventional Guide to History eBook Michael Rank
pretty superficial, not much to it. Glad it was a freebie.Product details
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Swindlers Necromancers and RealLife Vampires An Unconventional Guide to History eBook Michael Rank Reviews
This book contains 48 short chapters of almost completely random tidbits from history. Everywhere from the crusades to the Russian Revolution, to the invention of the computer and lots of other things in between. This book is fairly long for an e-book, which is nice because you feel like your getting your money’s worth. But like I said the chapters are short… like less than two pages, short. I guess this is what keeps you from getting bored. It’s nice because you can read this book fairly quickly.
He attempts to add some modern-day (or modern-society) humor throughout the book. A few cracks at some poorly made hollywood movies might help you understand the time in history a little bit better. One chapter, “The Five People with the Most Descendants Ever”, was about (as you would guess) people with a lot of kids. So I can understand how it would be impossible to write that chapter without making a joke about the Duggars (TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting). However, I found that to be extremely distasteful. He referred to them as an uneducated, backwoods family that doesn’t know how to manage a family. I don’t care if you disagree with their lifestyle, all those things are simply untrue and offensive.
This book attempts to explain a lot of general topics in history. For example, one chapter is, “What is the Quran and Why Is It So Important to Muslims?” I thought this was a good topic that fit nicely into this book (a lot of the topics are about the Crusades and other Middle Eastern history). However, while explaining the Quran he mentions the Umayyad caliph, Uthman. Now, I’m not an expert in Muslim history, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that whoever needs the importance of the Quaran explained to them, sure isn’t going to know what the heck an Umayyad caliph is! Explaining that could have been a whole chapter by itself. I found these sorts thing throughout the book while Mr. Rank was trying to explain something general or simple, he would throw in some specific term or concept with no explanation or further detail. In case I’ve left you curious, (you won’t be getting an explanation in this book) the shortest way to explain an Umayad caliph would be to compare it to a dynasty, empire, or ruler.
My biggest disappointment came when I read the chapter on “Queen Elizabeth of Tudor.” I love studying about the Tudor family and that time in history in general. I was excited to read this chapter. However at the end of this chapter was the sentence “She [Queen Elizabeth] was succeeded by James I of Scotland, the son of her half sister, Mary.” While James I of Scotland did succeed Elizabeth Tudor, he most certainly was not the son of Mary Tudor, half sister to Elizabeth. Mary Tudor (also known as bloody Mary) had several phantom pregnancies, where she so desperately wanted a child that her body actually started showing the symptoms of pregnancy, unfortunately she never had children. James I of Scotland was actually a Stuart, not a Tudor, and his mother was Mary Stuart (Queen of Scots), second cousin to the Tudors.
Another disappointment was the complete lack of footnotes and sources. If you write any piece of history at all, especially a book, there needs to sources. I do realize as a reader, I am unique that I actually am looking for footnotes and sources. Most people don’t care two cents where the information came from as long as it’s true (although re-read my last paragraph about James I, not all information is true in this book). Up until the chapter on Queen Elizabeth, I thought maybe I was being a little too picky. When I read a piece of information that is new to me, I enjoy looking at the sources to see where that information came from. Is it from a primary source? Was it a letter written by an actual person? Is it a secondary source? Is it a spin off another historian’s opinion or view point? If so, which historian, which book did it come from? Again, I do realize this makes me unique as a reader, but that is part of writing about history, and being a great historian. I must give Mr. Rank a little bit of credit here, he did mention that some chapters were based off a podcast, and one piece of information came from Wikipedia (neither of which I consider reliable sources, by the way).
This book was entertaining, and Mr. Rank was true to his tagline, about not being boring. There are also some fun topics like the connection between the ottoman, the footrest, and the Ottoman Empire; or why there are sea monsters drawn on the corner of old maps.
While this book was entertaining and fun to read, there are some historical inaccuracies, therefore, I do not recommend this book.
Was a good quick read. There were multiple grammatical errors in the kindle edition which made it somewhat distracting to read.
As far as the content, I think there was just too much information that doesn't link together for my taste. I guess I prefer history that is told in more of a narrative format versus the small snip-its in this book. It had a lot of good info, but now that I'm done I don't really know how much I retained since you go from one subject to another so quickly.
For anyone who enjoys reading about history, I would still recommend this book since it did have a lot of good information. I especially liked how in the part about the library of Alexandria it mentioned how Carl Sagan talked about this in Cosmos because I was totally thinking about that while I was reading the beginning of it!
I will definately read another book by this author since it looks like there are many other titles available that get more in-depth on less topics.
Looking for a light read with lots of promised drama and a bit of substance? Give Swindlers, Necromancers, and Real-Life Vampires An Unconventional Guide to History a shot. In his new book, Michael Rank offers 48 brief stories of biographies, battles and glimpses into larger than life historical figures. With just enough touching upon the highlights of history this eBook will offer loads of small talk trivia and maybe even get casual readers interested in history on a deeper level than ever before.
Swindlers, Necromancers, and Real-Life Vampires is an easy to read overview of history that won't get the reader bogged down in tedious dates and details. Only the barest facts with a bit of social commentary are thrown into this eBook. Having read Mr. Rank's Off the Edge of the Map I did expect a bit more from this new volume. Unlike the previous book, I felt as if this "History in Five Minutes" referred to the amount of time it took to write - not the time spent reading the chapters.
Still, while I don't recommend Swindlers, Necromancers, and Real-Life Vampires for students of history is a great casual read for hobbyist historians. The perfect non fiction book for waiting rooms, commercial breaks, and baking times.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
This book consists of 48 bite-sized chapters on everything from the real life Dr. Frankenstein to Joan of Arc to that time the US government tried to use camels pre pony express. It claims to be a "Reader's Digest approach to history. Only much more entertaining." It's also based on the author's podcast, so I was totes expecting a conversational, tongue-in-cheek book (kind of like Drunk History of John Green's Crash Course).
It mostly succeeded... if not for the typos. And the general confusing sentence structure brought about by lack of editing. It reads casually and fine for the most part, but then I'll stumble across a passage that is written as if Siri transcribed it for him. As much as this bugs me and makes me want to break out the red pen (#englishmajorprobs), it really only made me put the book down for a stretch of time before I felt refreshed enough to read a bit more. My mom, on the other hand, was outraged that someone would send this out to bloggers for review without making sure it was perfect first- enough that she was trying to form a metaphor about why it was so abhorrent. Thanks for being wounded on my behalf, I guess?
All-in-all, it's a good little e-book that answers history's fun questions- like Kim Jong Il's golf score, the world's greatest forgeries, thieves, and imposters, badass ladies of the middle ages and much, much more!
pretty superficial, not much to it. Glad it was a freebie.
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