The Great Villains of History

by Richard B. Spence

The arc of history is filled with tyrants, traitors, scoundrels, and cold-blooded killers. From Nero and Napoleon to Mata Hari and Charles Manson, the “bad guys” command our attention, bring excitement to the history books, and fill the airwaves with tales of true crime. But what makes a villain anyway? And why do their stories so capture our imaginations?

The Great Villains of History takes you into the riveting world of charisma and crime, evil and opportunity, ambition and bloodshed. Taught by esteemed Dr. Richard B. Spence, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Idaho, these 24 lectures tell the stories of more than 70 villains from Ancient Rome to Jeffrey Epstein, exploring not just what they did, but why they did it—and what their choices reveal about the darkest corners of the human heart.

Drawing from vivid historical accounts, Professor Spence spans eras and archetypes, from femme fatales and freebooters to dictators, war criminals, secret policemen, and criminal masterminds. He introduces you to such infamous figures as Lucrezia Borgia, accused of murder by poison amid family intrigue; Heinrich Himmler, the architect of Nazi terror; and Pablo Escobar, the cocaine kingpin and killer of the first order.

As he surveys these tales of terror and intrigue, Professor Spence also takes you on a journey through the human heart. The villains in this course are not cartoon monsters but rather complex, intelligent individuals often convinced of their own righteousness—even as their narcissism unleashed disaster on their victims. You’ll find little sympathy for Jim Jones or Charles Manson, but what do we make of Catherine the Great, John D. Rockefeller, or Henry Kissinger?

Whether it’s the calculated oppression of a Stasi leader or the bloody rise of a totalitarian dictator, The Great Villains of History dissects evil without glorifying it, bringing you on a journey across history and into the deepest recesses of the human mind.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Adult, True Crime

Audible Audio

Published February 21, 2026

About the author

Dr. Richard “Rick” Spence received his PhD in History from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1981. He has taught at the University of Idaho since 1986 where currently he is a tenured full Professor of History. He specializes in Russian, intelligence and military history, and his course offerings include Modern Espionage, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, History of Secret Societies and the Occult in History.

Dr. Spence’s published works include Boris Savinkov: Renegade on the Left (East European Monographs/Columbia Univ. Press, 1991), Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Feral House, 2002) and Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (Feral House, 2008). He is also the author of numerous articles in Revolutionary Russia, Intelligence and National Security, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, The Historian, New Dawn and other publications. He has served as a commentator/consultant for the History Channel and the International Spy Museum and was a key consultant-interviewee for the Russian Cultural Foundation’s 2007 documentary film, “Leon Trotsky: The Secret of World Revolution,” and its subsequent “Trap for the Tsar.”

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thrilling, if you know nothing about History.

[Siv30 · Rating 3 out of 5]

24 הרצאות על יותר משבעים "נבלים" היסטוריים, מהיטלר והימלר ועד לוקרציה בורג׳ה ורספוטין. סדרה חכמה ומעצבנת שבמיטבה בוחנת לא רק מי היה נבל, אלא איך אדם פרטי הופך את הרוע שלו למערכת. לסקירה מפורטת בעברית ואנגלית, קישור לבלוג שלי -

https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/the-...

[James Council · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book overall, but it was more entertaining than informative.

[eloise · Rating 4 out of 5]

apparently i have deeply enjoyed other lecture series by this same professor. this was a surprise to me given how clearly biased in found him in multiple segments of this series, mostly when discussing women. elizabeth bathory and yoshiko kawashima’s segments were the most egregious to me - especially the latter wherein the lecturer paused to say to specifically ignore kawashima’s history of wearing male attire and explicitly saying she identified as a man while sleeping with women “because she just enjoyed attention”. i find this as egregious as insisting universally that all examples of gender non-conformity or same-sex desire MUST be a modern form of trans or queer identity, with the added insult of completely dismissing one of the specific aspects of yoshiko kawashima’s story that sets her apart from the other (reductively labeled, in my opinion) “femme fatales” in her lecture. this, combined with a much earlier dismissal of the evidence surrounding both elizabeth bathory and gilles de rais’ cases which suggest that their crimes were largely fictitious and motivated primarily by desires for land or elimination of political threats, as well as the peculiar particularity of saying henry kissinger was a “suggested” war criminal in the war criminals lecture, struck me as injecting the lecturer’s own ideological preferences to a degree unusual for the great courses series. the entire premise of this course was the “great villains of history” and given that this, by its very nature, requires a narrative structure and be politically biased (history, victors, etc), i expected to either have the segments address the inherent bias in each story by discussing evidentiary conflicts and framing, or i expected them to be straight-forward narratives more akin to popular true crime stories and which would be light on facts. therefore immediately noting easily verifiable technical inaccuracies and the lecturer’s own perspective bias (either unaddressed or attributed to others) cast an uncomfortable miasma on the entire series, as i was now unable to determine to what extent this was meant to be *educational* versus *entertainment* and resented any indication that the latter was masquerading as the former. i find this deeply insulting to the reader (or in this case listener’s) intelligence and both poorly informed and manipulative on the part of the lecturer. and yet i am giving this four stars. that would be because once i accepted this had limited educational value beyond “remember this name and look this up to read more about it later” it became a breezy way to find interesting new topics for further proper research. constructing a narrative in such a way allowed this to be, effectively, less of a proper “great course” like my many others and more of “a skilled storyteller reading off of wikipedia”, which was at least entertaining akin to a podcast from a decade ago. for addressing information warfare and how victorious ideology warps historiography? zero stars. negative, even. for “72 Villains From History You Won’t Believe Got Away With It (Number 34 will SHOCK You!)” in audio format (with a particular emphasis on soviet, british, and american clandestine warfare and spycraft, the areas of the professor’s expertise)? sure, four stars. one honorarily knocked off for the sentence “though nearing thirty, she still had her looks” in the mata hari segment alone.

[Steve Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the beginning I thought the author had done nothing more created a narrative recounting the lives and exploits of various heinous criminals of the sort we find populating the "True Crime" shelves of Barnes and Noble. In time, though, he branched out, and covered some I'd never heard of before.

He groups these villains into various categories. This allows him to get Alfred Packer, the cannibal, into the lecture alongside the likes of Henry Kissinger, Mata Hari and the Marquis De Sade. He covers quite a bit of ground, and the listener will likely learn quite a bit they didn't know. I did.

I disagree with his demonization of Hirohito as the main heavy behind the Imperial ambitions of Japan in the 20th century. I tend to fall into the camp of the Emperor being a passive and reluctant figurehead who had more interest in his study of marine biology. I'd have chosen another imperialist like Germany's Bismarck, or even Hideki Tojo. Tojo was Hirohito's Prime Minister during most of the war years.

True, while Tojo was one in a high position of power who can be blamed for the fatal militaristic plots of Japan, Hirohito is nevertheless the one whose position demands he be responsible, even he if isn't to blame.

To be fair, Spence gives Tojo mention in the story about Hirohito, and The Great Courses supplies a picture of Tojo in the PDF handbook that accompanies the work. They labeled the picture of Tojo as "Emperor Hirohito".

Now Spence might not be to blame for that, but he was responsible, and maybe at some small level he even agrees with me who the real nefarious ne'er do well is in that story.

[Amy Gideon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked some of the lectures more than others. I don't quite have the words but the way this is done sort of makes light of the atrocities some of these people committed. Some sections are fine for this short content, but others probably needed more depth and time dedicated to really impart the gravity of what's being discussed. He's an engaging lecturer though, so it's not as awkward as it could have been.

I also thought the femme fatale section didn't have good representation. The examples ranged from early middle ages to the late Renaissance and the lecture starts out with a pithy line like "all were born to wealth and power, what more can they want?" And I don't know maybe self determination, bodily autonomy, basic human rights?

It really doesn't make sense to use this label for women of these times. All three of the examples he used were married at 13 or 15 and one had several broken engagements as her father used marriage to her as a tool to accrue more power for himself. Like, what are we even talking about? The closest would be his final example of Catherine the Great but honestly what he describes of her could have easily fit any male monarch. I think the section would have been better if he had used modern examples.

I'm not saying that these women couldn't be considered villains, I just don't think femme fatale makes sense. Like Elizabeth Bathory makes more sense in the serial killer section and I don't think Lucrezia Borgia belongs on this list at all since it seems like she was used by the men around her and her supposed villainous deeds seems more myth than real.

Also he mispronounces sadism throughout and it's a bit distracting.

[Alannah Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Great Villains of History by Richard B. Spence was an interesting exploration of some of history’s most notorious figures, examining the individuals behind their reputations and the circumstances that shaped their actions.

I particularly appreciated the historical context and the opportunity to consider these figures from different perspectives rather than simply accepting the labels history has given them. There were some fascinating insights, and I enjoyed learning more about the motivations, ambitions and decisions that contributed to their legacies.

However, I found the experience a little uneven. Some sections were much more engaging than others, while certain topics could have benefited from greater depth and a more critical examination. At times, it felt as though the course was covering a lot of ground without fully exploring the complexities of its subjects.

Overall, this was an informative and worthwhile listen, particularly for anyone interested in the darker side of history. Although it didn’t completely captivate me, it offered plenty of interesting material and encouraged me to think more critically about how historical figures are remembered.

An enjoyable enough introduction to a fascinating subject, but one that left me wanting a little more depth.

[Hunter Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seems an odd choice with roughly half hour lectures to choose three villains per lecture which dilutes the overall series and felt like more of a Wikipedia summary more than an in depth examination and understanding of what a villain is, their motivations, psychological underpinnings etc. Yes he briefly touches on such things but I felt disappointed with most lectures. Also, according to this guy, he says Kissinger is the same as Reichsführer-SS psychopath Himmler. Also never mentions Genghis Khan, you know the guy responsible for killing andor enslaving the largest percentage of the human population alive during his time (with those totals I am am NOT including introducing the plague to Europe, radicalizing Islam after the destruction of Baghdad the jewel of Islam focused on learning and knowledge. Those facts are from lecturers of other Great Courses.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had mixed feeliings about this one. I think it would have been better (and maybe this was what I had imagined it would be), if Spence concentrated on one "villain" for each lecture rather than three, which made it very superficial and, with the categories, sometimes made me feel like he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. (As far as the ancient Romans went, though, there were probably about a hundred people who would have been more appropriate than Julian the Apostate, who was far as I know is only considered a "villain" by Christians, and mainly because he put roadblocks in their path to taking over the empire.) The one I found the best was the one that was a deep dive into Hitler, and I think it would have been immeasurably better if that's how they had all been done.

[Beejai Richardson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of lectures consisting of 3 villains each. Each one is built around a different topic like femme fatales, serial killers, despots, etc. Lecture is probably the wrong word. There is no real teaching going on. There are no value judgments made. No attempts to glean anything from their lives. It isn't even storytelling as much as it is conveying facts from these lives. Should have been a fun read, or at least informational. But no. Great courses, once again, is a lie on two fronts. It was not great. And it was not an educational course. I got this for free on Audible. It wasn't worth the money spent.

[Cameron Takeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know it's a general survey, but it would have done more favors to go into more depth one maybe just one or two per topic instead of a glossed overview of three people per category. Certainly it works as a start, but it can often feel like even less than a tasting-spoon's worth. Overall though, it does bring to light a few characters who might have been missed in more general history class/readings.

[Sheridan Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very detailed set of accounts of real life Villains throughout history.
I enjoyed this book as it covered so many Evil people spanning hundreds of years.
Many I had heard of before, and many I had never heard of, but the accounts were detailed and written in an essay-to-undestand way that keeps you interested from start to finish.
Recommended for people who enjoy True Crime and/or History genres.

[killlaniaddict]

Short summaries of different type of figures that are considered villains. Its brief, detailed, and informative. I think it is a great introduction for people who are interested in history but don’t know where to start. I went into rabbit holes about some of them and jeeez they’re villains for a reason.

[James Livermore · Rating 3 out of 5]

My second lecture series with Prof. Spence. I enjoyed the first one, this not as much. I could see doing a 2 star. It is a very quick and cursory overview each lecture of THREE "villains." Some them he admits are not villains and other times he compares people who were horrible to those not so much. It is an overall a disappointing experience.

[AttackGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why exactly is Crowley in here? What about his handlers or the ones who had impact on his publications that now have people following some ideas and sacrificing others for those made up ideas?

Rich - Dick - Perhaps a deep dive into each character to build the book and then we will see the list of villains change dramatically.

[Lydia Langston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Sometimes I found my eyes glazing over and other times I wanted to know more and was left with questions. The time jumps also were confusing sometimes. It may have been better if it was organized differently.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good scholarly work.
Easy to get bored during some.
Choices seem a little capricious at times.
D

[Scro Scro · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's cool, good narrator, decent overview of all the characters involved

[Ian MacIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this read. Lots of interesting stuff. I didn't have Kissinger on my Villian list. There is enough info on people to make me interested in a few longer book versions of the Villains.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the wide ranging biographies, but some of his ideas of what constitutes a villain to be included in his course seemed a little off.

[JadeDakini · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

3.5⭐️
Fun and entertaining, but nothing extraordinary.