This book is unbelievable. Not the numbers; White does an admirable job seeking reasonable consensus views based on a variety of sources, and explains the limits of his knowledge and the biases of the historical record. Not the basic fact of man's inhumanity to man; as a species, we are horrific monsters. What's unbelievable is that anybody could write such a book and not wind up insane/dead/torn from reality by Yog-Sothoth.

Each of the 100 atrocities (minimum 300,000 deaths) is covered in a brief section from 2 to 21 pages, with longer sections for bigger atrocities. The tone is ironic, detached, somewhere between Wikipedia and Cracked.com. Not that White makes light of megadeaths, but poking fun at the stupidity and insanity around them is the only way to make trudging through endless torture, stabbing, shooting, starvation moderately bearable. The statistical insights are worthwhile, but at the end of the day, this is a painful book, perhaps not as respectful as the subject deserves, and not interesting enough for people who are not totally hardcore to read.

EDIT: After a few months, I bumped my review up to 4 stars. The book is still horrifying, but more impressive from a distance.