Nasty, brutish, and short.

This is the way English philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the living conditions into which humans inevitably fall without a strong, central authority. However, Hobbes would agree that living under a brutal dictator could lead to the same conditions. He would know — he lived a century after the bloody reign of Henry VIII, 150 years after Spanish conquistadors witnessed Montezuma II offering up thousands of human sacrifices, and four centuries after Genghis Khan rode throughout Eurasia and left behind enough death and destruction to depopulate major parts of the globe.

This exciting new book from historian Michael Rank looks at the lives and times of the worst dictators in history. You will learn about their reigns and violent actions, such as...