Go to Hell: A Heated History of the Underworld

by Chuck Crisafulli, Kyra Thompson

Close your eyes and picture -- just for a moment -- hell. Fire? Demons? Eternal torment?
Well, yes -- that's the place, in one very hot nutshell. But that's not all there is to the forbidding world beneath us. For a few millennia now, we mortals have imagined and reimagined hell in countless as a realm of damnation, as an inspiration for highest art, as a setting for the lowest of lowbrow comedy. One might conclude that for all our good intentions to enter para- dise, we can't seem to get enough vivid details of its counterpart, hell.
Provocative, colorful, and damned entertaining, Go to Hell takes readers on a tour of the underworld that is both darkly comical and seriously informative. From the frozen hell of the Vikings to the sun-drenched Cayman Islands' town of Hell (where tourists line up to have their postcards aptly postmarked), from Dante's circles of hell to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Hellmouth, Go to Hell embraces our evolving relationship with the sinner's final destination, revealing how we truly think of ourselves in this world.

What's down below?
Meet HEL, the hideous, half-rotting goddess of the Viking underworld.
Beware the Egyptians' AM-MUT, an unsightly mix of lion, crocodile, and hippo parts, and insatiably hungry for wicked souls.
Visit JIGOKU, a Buddhist realm of eight fiery hells and eight icy an all-you-can-suffer hot-and-cold buffet.
Step into the INFERNO for a tour of Dante's nine circles of the damned...

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2005

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A breezy (if that word can be applied to this subject matter) overview of cultural, mythological, and artistic conceptions of the Underworld and its inhabitants from prehistoric times to the present, drawn from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the Bible and the Tibetan Book of the Dead to Warner Brothers cartoons and Halloween "hell houses", and taking in most of the usual suspects (Dante, Milton, et al.) along the way. While the authors don't deal with most of their subjects in any great depth, preferring to rely on potted summaries and collections of loosely-connected factoids, their approach is lively and in the end informative.

[Lemar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was pure hell. It's almost impossible to review this boo without at least on pun so now I have got that out of the way. This book takes on a fascinating subject. The role of hell emerges as the ultimate boogy-man, the looming threat behind the imperative to behave morally. There is a parental aspect to this notion yet as a construct made to apply to adults it has taken on unparalleled horror and description. I found the subject extremely interesting and the authors handing of it just the right mix of modern tongue in cheek skepticism with a genuine appreciation of how this arguably human construct has and continues to play a very real role in the fears of millions.

[Patti · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a study of Hell and the ways different cultures since the beginning of time have perceived it. Some reviews I'd read before I bought the book mentioned how funny it was. It wasn't. But the tone was light enough to make this an enjoyable read.

One thing that remained with me is how terrible our psyches must be to imagine the variety of hells humans have conjured over the past 5 millennium.

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

More information then I ever needed to know about hell.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very informative book on various underworlds in different cultures. It's nice to get a glimpse of what different societies thought about the afterlife.

[Alexandra Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, fun and informative read!