{ "item_title" : "The Pessimist's Guide to History 3e", "item_author" : [" Doris Flexner", "Stuart Berg Flexner "], "item_description" : "The classic irreverent look at the past--now updated with even more appalling facts Fourteen billion or so years ago, the Big Bang exploded--and it's been downhill from there. For every spectacular discovery throughout history, there have been hundreds of devastating epidemics; for every benevolent despot, a thousand like Vlad the Impaler; for every cup half-full, a larger cup half-empty. This enthralling, enlightening, and devilishly entertaining chronicle of disasters and dastardly deeds brings to light the darkest events in history and the most abysmal calamities to strike the planet . . . so far.88 BC: Mithridates VI Eupator provides an early example of genocide by massacring 100,000 Romans.1347: Saint Vitus' Dance Epidemic shimmies across Europe like a deadly disco fever, leaving its victims twitching, uncontrollably leaping, and foaming at the mouth.1888: Jack the Ripper stalks through the dark alleys of Whitechapel, England, turning the world's oldest profession into the world's most dangerous one.1939: A Swiss chemist wins a Nobel Prize for developing DDT--and the environment gets another nail in the coffin.2005: Hurricane Katrina devastates the Gulf Coast. In a classic double whammy, the government response also devastates the Gulf Coast.And much, much more ", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/143/101/006143101X_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "18.99", "online_price" : "18.99", "our_price" : "18.99", "club_price" : "18.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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