Ben Thompson - Badass: A Relentless Onslaught of the Toughest Warlords, Vikings, Samurai, Pirates, Gunfighters, and Military Commanders to Ever Live

Antiquity

Destroying your enemies from the beginning of human history to the fall of Rome in 476 CE

Ramses II

Egyptian pharaoh who built an empire through propaganda, war, and giant sculptures of his grimacing face

Leonidas

His 300 Spartans fought the most famous last stand in history

Xenophon

Trapped deep behind enemy lines, he led a small band of mercenaries on an epic odyssey worthy of Homer himself

Alexander the Great

Conquered most of the known world before his thirty-third birthday

Chandragupta Maurya

Indian warlord who commanded an army of war elephants and an elite detachment of highly trained female bodyguards

Liu Ji

This impoverished peasant clawed his way from nothing to become the emperor of Chinas most powerful dynasty

Gaius Julius Caesar

Romes most daring general was a military genius who laid the foundation for an empire that would last centuries

The Surena

Parthian warlord who inflicted one of the worst defeats the Romans ever suffered

Julia Agrippina

The cunning black widow of Rome was the real power behind the throne of three emperors

Alaric the Bold

Ruthless ruler of the Visigoths and the first barbarian king to sack Rome in nearly a millennium

The Middle Ages

Getting medieval on their asses: the fall of Rome to the destruction of Constantinople in 1453

Khalid bin Walid

The Sword of Allah crushed the Persian and Byzantine Empires with just a handful of battle-hardened warriors

Justinian II

Brutal Byzantine emperor who let nothing stand in the way of his quest for vengeance

Charles Martel

The Hammer of Christendom won the battle that would forever keep the Moors out of Western Europe

Wolf the Quarrelsome

Mysterious barbarian leader who only appears in history twiceand both times hes kicking someones ass

William the Conqueror

This crazy bastards ruthless invasion of England would change the course of history for centuries to come

Harald Hardrada

The last of the great Viking sea kings decapitated fools up and down the Mediterranean

El Cid Campeador

Spains most legendary knight, this hero of the Reconquista never tasted defeat on the field of battle

Tomoe Gozen

Tough female samurai distinguished herself in countless battles, fighting with the ferocity of ten men

Genghis Khan

The tyrannical khan of khans forged historys most expansive empireone giant pile of human skulls at a time

Vlad the lmpaler

The real Count Dracula wasnt actually a vampire, but he wasnt exactly a nice guy, either

The Age of Gunpowder

Blowing crap up from 1453 to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914

Miyamoto Musashi

Wandering samurai swordsman won sixty duels between the ages of thirteen and thirty

Peter the Great

The almighty tsar of imperial Russia crushed his enemies and partied like a seventeenth-century rock star

Blackbeard

Many sailors believed this fearsome cutthroat was the devil incarnatethey may have been right

Anne Bonny

One of the only documented female pirates was also one of historys most dangerous

Peter Francisco

Unsung hero of the American Revolution who fought the redcoats with a massive five-foot-long broadsword

Horatio Nelson

One-eyed, one-armed British admiral who spent his life blasting French warships into driftwood

Napoleon Bonaparte

Corsican commoner seized control of France and repeatedly beat the crap out of Europes most powerful empires

Agustina of Aragon

The Maid of Saragossa fearlessly defended her city against a rampaging French army

Bass Reeves

Runaway slave who became one of most successful lawmen and gunfighters of the American West

Nikola Tesla

The greatest mad scientist of all time spent his final days developing a massive atomic death ray

The Modern Era

Mechanized chaos and full-auto destruction: World War I to 2009

Manfred von Richthofen

The Red Baron struck fear into the hearts of everything over the skies of Europe, except maybe a few species of birds

Henry Lincoln Johnson

From humble beginnings to American war hero, he took on the Germans in hand-to-hand combat to rescue his comrade

Eliot Ness

His small group of hard-boiled Untouchables took down the most notorious crime lord in American history

Jack Churchill

Swashbuckling British officer fought World War II with a longbow, a broadsword, and a set of bagpipes

Irina Sebrova

Soviet pilot flew daring raids over German airspace at the head of an all-female bomber unit known as the Night Witches

Bhanbhagta Gurung

Gurkha soldier cleared out six enemy bunkers with grenades, a knife, a rock, and anything else he managed to get his hands on

George S. Patton

The toughest military commander in American history tossed out traditional military tactics in favor of all-out assaults

Carlos Hathcock

Operating deep behind enemy lines in North Vietnam, this Marine sniper earned a reputation as the deadliest man alive

Bruce Lee

The legendary martial arts master honed his body to become the ultimate killing machine

Jonathan Netanyahu

Israeli Special Forces commander personally led one of the worlds most successful counterterrorist operations

Theres no one that can match me.

My style is impetuous.

My defense is impregnable, and Im just ferocious.

I want your heart.
I want to eat his children.

MIKE TYSON

THIS BOOK FEATURES THE GREAT ASS-KICKERS OF WORLD DOMINATION . From those who rule the textbooks, such as Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror, and George S. Patton, to more mysterious and obscure characters including Wolf the Quarrelsome, Bass Reeves, and Irina Sebrova, these men and women routinely overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles, wrecked the asses of their enemies in an exceedingly violent manner, and ultimately altered the course of history through their actions. While vicious conquerors such as Genghis Khan and Vlad the Impaler took great satisfaction in parading around the severed heads of their vanquished enemies, others, including Leonidas and Horatio Nelson, were noble heroes who fought to defend their homelands from tyranny and oppression at the hands of foreign invaders.

The historical figures in this book span every era of history, every corner of the globe, and every spectrum of human morality, but they all share certain qualities that define them as badasses, and there are many lessons to be learned from them: