What a Way to Go: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death

by Geoffrey Abbott

A gruesomely, hilarious and fascinating pop-history account of methods of execution from around the world and through the ages

In this wickedly humorous book, Geoffrey Abbott describes the effectiveness of instruments of torture and reveals the macabre origins of familiar phrases such as 'gone west' or 'drawn a blank'. Covering everything from the preparation of the victim to the disposal of the body 'What a Way to Go' is everything you ever wanted to know about the ultimate penalty---and a lot you never thought to ask.

It includes such hair-raising categories
- Sewn in an Anima's A living person is sewn into the belly of an animal and left to die&
- The Spanish This method of torture consisted of seating a victim on top of a wall that resembled an inverted V with weights attached to the ankles, the weights slowly increased until the victim's body split in two
- Iron The victim is tied to an iron armchair and pushed nearer and nearer to a blazing fire

What a Way to Go is a a unique and fascinating look at the grim and gritty history of sanctioned death

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, Death, Crime, Historical

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2006

About the author

Geoffrey Abbott served for many years as a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London. Author of nineteen books and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica/, he has made numerous television appearances. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

While some chapters were a few pages long, the majority of the "ways to go" were maybe just a page in length-some even only a paragraph.
The chapters or the short descriptions on the types of death and torture instruments are in alphabetical order-some examples on what to expect is info on death by axe, the iron maiden, scaphismus, twenty-four cuts, and so forth.
Was a quick and interesting read-overall, was just wanting more out of it.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m of the same opinion as many others who reviewed this book and gave it a 1 or 2 star rating that I couldn’t give it a higher rating - thanks to the almost complete exclusion of execution methods outside the UK and US. I remember specifically this extremely horrific method of Japanese torture and execution (which was inflicted upon POWs captured by the Japanese in WWII) - something to the effect of growing bamboo shoots through the condemned man’s body.

Essentially all Japanese torture methods are some of the most horrendous, even when compared to some of the most brutal medieval ones. I think the horror resides mostly in the fact that they show no mercy for their almost-dead victims, by keeping them alive as long as possible, aiming to inflict the most excruciating pain possible while avoiding the vital organs.

While Hara-Kiri is mentioned in the book and is unique to Japanese society, even the author admits it is considered to be a form of ritualistic suicide and not judicial punishment. Furthermore, it only occurred as a “sacrifice” among incredibly wealthy, if not solely aristocratic families, where individuals charged with serious crimes could avoid the disgrace and dishonor they’d given their family’s name, should they choose to “voluntarily leave this world with honor.”

Interesting, but again, a suicide method and a mere 2 1/2 pages at that. As I’ve seen others mention, with some of the more interesting but less commonly used execution methods, there would often be just a single page, paragraph, sometimes even just a single sentence on a single page. Take for example, “Shot by Arrows”, on p. 229 (the methods are all listed in alphabetical order):

”The early Danes dispatched their victims by this means, prolonging the suffering by aiming their arrows at non-vital parts of the body until finally administering the coup de grâce. Edmund, the last king of East Anglia, was shot to death in this manner by the Vikings in AD 870.”

I know, I know. It’s two sentences, not one. However, only one sentence of the two actually tells the reader anything about the method, while the last sentence merely states the last person to die in this manner.

Meanwhile, in what is only a 278 page book (with 66 different execution methods) - you’d get many more pages devoted to well-known execution methods, such as 21 full pages on the guillotine and 30 on hanging.

Considering the fact that I’ve seen longer YouTube videos detailing the Brazen Bull (I should probably come back and edit this after checking, but I can’t say for sure I’ll do both - if any, lol) - possibly up to ten minutes long; I think Mr. Geoffrey Abbott, a former Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London, could have done a better job including more information regarding the rarer techniques (but often much more creative or appalling - or both, depending on your perspective).

If Abbott didn’t feel he knew enough about them, couldn’t find enough conclusive evidence of their use in his research, then, as others suggested, the book should simply have been shorter. I’ve never enjoyed books split into sections of any sort where the sections aren’t of mostly equal length. To go from one or two page descriptions, to 16 pages, to 18, back to half a page, a page, 20 pages… it was either too short to make an impression, or too unnecessarily tedious.

Save your time and if you’re really interested in this rather niche subject, check out some YouTube videos from reliable historical channels. Even Wikipedia has better entries on some of these methods than Abbott does in a specialty book. Even though I just finished it four months ago, it was very forgettable.

[Jennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I think that not everyone shares my macabre sense of humor, and then I feel slightly bad about laughing out loud while reading books like this in public. In my defense, this book is written in a darkly humorous tone, so it's hard not to laugh.

Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death, by Geoffrey Abbott, is broken into 70 small sections, each with a different method of execution. Abbott describes each method, and then gives a short historical background and usually a primary source example. Most of them I'd heard of before, but others, like the Spanish Donkey and the Dry Pan, were new to me.

What I like about this book, other than introductions to new methods of execution, is that it's broken up into convenient, small sections. It's actually the perfect bathroom book - you need to read this one bit at a time to really absorb the information (and picture it, curiously, with the face of someone you can't stand superimposed over the victim). The drawback of this is that it doesn't offer quite as much historical information as I would like, and I was also a bit disappointed that Abbott doesn't seem to use endnotes or footnotes (which is only to be expected by a mass-market publisher). He does provide a select bibliography (some of which the nerd in me is delighted to see that I've already read!) and cool appendices with executioner terminology and even an 1884 application to be an executioner. The tone of the book is humorous, but doesn't necessarily come down on either side of the capital punishment issue, which is refreshing compared to books by, say, Richard J. Evans (scholarly author), who seems to think that his reader needs to be reminded of how! horrible! executions! are! every page or so.

I definitely recommend this book for the macabre goth kid in your family, and the history nerd, but probably not that person you always suspected would suddenly snap and kill their friends or family.

[Mary-Esther Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

A horrific testament to human ingenuity and/or barbarity depending on your point-of-view.

[Stefanie Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I checked this book out from my local library after another book of his was suggested to me. They did not have that book at the time, but I found this one. People came up with some really creative ways to torture and punish someone. I wonder how many confessions they got were true and how many were just made to get the torment to stop.

[Lindsey Rojem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book a bit annoying, he dwelt way too much on the methods we already know a lot about, and too little on the things we aren't as familiar with. I didn't find it necessary to know the history of each executioner, and what they had for breakfast.

[Dalton Sizemore · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were parts of the book that I really enjoyed. Honestly, the weirder style of executions were very interesting, and even the stories of the more basic execution types were interesting sometimes. However, I found this book to be extremely boring at times. Maybe this is fair, maybe not, but at times it felt as if the author was padding out a required page count rather than attempt to prove an interesting story/narrative. While I enjoyed this at first, it honestly just became a slog to finish. If it hadn’t been for the occasional wacky/different executions styles and the dispersed funny/interesting anecdotes, I probably wouldn’t have finished it all.

I really wanted to enjoy this more. 2.75/5⭐️

[Kirby R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a brilliant little encyclopedia of extermination methods, be them well known and infamous or obscure and horrifying. Each chapter undergoes a similar pattern of description, method of use, and examples (both successes and failures, some of which appear in Abbott's "The Executioner Always Chops Twice"). Most of the chapters are very short, some not even a paragraph, and those that are exceedingly lengthy are so for good reason, such as the guillotine and hanging. It's grisly and descriptive, yet also humorous at times, which is a nice if unexpected touch for a book of this nature. All in all, I found this to be quite enjoyable and lived up to the expectations I had.

[Robert Mckay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject is fascinating (regardless of your views on capital punishment), but after a while the steady diet of gore begins to pall. Of course in real life it wouldn't become passe, except perhaps to a psychopath, but on the pages of a book it does.

Still, Abbott is a good, entertaining writer, and I'm not sorry I read the book.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book in the order each chapter was presented, and think it might be better suited organized some way other than alphabetically. It felt slightly whiplash-ish.

That said, it was an informative read! I'd be reluctant to recommend it to a friend only because of the subject matter, but... Well, you know what I mean. I say it's a good book!

[Kurt Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting anecdotes but found much of the information on Wikipedia afterward

[Seth Heasley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Proposed alternate title: A History of People Suck. No way a book about executions should be this entertaining.

[Kelsey Modlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The content obviously being intriguing I really thought this book would be more fun to read, but it ended up being sooo slow and a real chore to get through.

[Keily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and eery, quick read. The only thing that got me was that there are no footnotes.

[Amber · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overwhelmingly disappointing.

For one, Abbot focuses mainly on executions used in Europe, mainly Spain, France, and England. China is mentioned in one entry: Death by a Thousand Cuts with, admittedly, quite a bit of detail. The United States is also mentioned in the more modern methods, gas chamber, lethal injection, etc. But outside a few throw away lines about "tribes in Africa", Abbott has very little on the methods of execution in South America, Asia, Africa, Australia or really anywhere that isn't Spain, France or England.

Also a lot of the entries are short. Very short. After the 15 page history on of the Axe, we come to the Bastinado, a very interesting execution method where Executioners tap lightly on their victims feet until they die. Definitely more interesting than the axe in my opinion (which, again, got 15 pages.) If you would like to know more, well the entry is about half a page long, and around four paragraphs.

And that is true of many executions in the book, street, with some just getting a few sentences on their page. Not only that, but Abbott decided he needed five variations of the guillotine (the diele, the guillotine, the Halifax gibbet, and the mannaia) and then only went into detail about the Halifax and the guillotine, giving the others less than half a page each.

I was really hoping for something well rounded and was very disappointed by how unbalanced the book is.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were many parts of this book that were fascinating, unfortunately there were also many segments that went on for way too long. For example, they might spend 30-50 pages describing the guillotine and giving examples of when it was used, and then spend only a paragraph on some really interesting form of execution. Part of this is because more is known about forms of death like the guillotine and hanging than some of the more interesting ones, but that just means the book should be shorter. Still, it was worth reading.

[Nicholas Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun creepy book about the different forms of execution from ancient times to current, interesting tales of famous and botched executions as well as stories of executioners. My only gripe would be that there wasn't as much details on the lesser known forms of execution which were ones I wanted to know more about.

[Shanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot believe some of the ways in which society has chosen to dispatch its unwanted members. This book is an incredibly well researched, albiet disturbing list of the many methods of torture and execution used all over the globe.

So far, it is proving to be an excellent read, but I can really only read portions every once in awhile-it's not really the book that I can imagine tearing through in one sitting...

[P. · Rating 4 out of 5]

66 awful ways people were executed. It is appallingly graphic. The author was a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London and lived with his wife on the grounds. His is a very chatty, informal style and he includes personal opinions and jocular remarks in the work. He does a nice job of estimating how many miscreants were burnt alive, guillotined, etc.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

An encyclopedic look at the various ways that people have been executed throughout history.

I've always been a little bit morbid, so this was right up my alley. I enjoyed it for the most part, although it does get a little dry with certain entries, as the first-hand accounts get a little boring at times.

[Hel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eesch. Yes, this book is exactly what you think it is. You know how people can make just about any awesome thing they can think of? Well, they can make any terrible thing too.
It was a good and interesting read though, apart from the copious grammatical and other errors (Raleigh, North Virginia, I ask you?)

[Jennifer Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so deranged! I was fascinated by the more obscure means of execution such as being sewn up in a donkey corpse and left in the sun to rot. The human mind apparently has no limit to the creativity of killing one and other.

[Jennifer]

For anyone who's ever been fascinated with or mildly amused by the various and real historical methods by which people met their ends. The chapters are short. It's a dip-able book. Much easier to digest than that horrible "1000 Ways To Die" television program!

[Marisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, little read that runs the gamut and really covers alot of truly horrible ways to die as well as some high points(?) during the type of execution. This book provides a wealth of information, background and brings love some of the people that either lived or died by the methods covered

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as interesting as I had hoped. Too much detail on the things we've heard about, and not enough on the lesser-known ones.

[Jennifer]

Just got this for Christmas...sort of an inside-family-joke thing.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super entertaining and quite informative! "Essential reading for all gore junkies" pretty much says it all.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was weird, creepy, and hilarious. Check it out.

[Ian Mathers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overly dry at times, overly repetitive at others, and sometimes he forgets to explain things I'd really love him to explain, but still interesting reading.

[Jeni]

It was really interesting. I love reading/learning about different historical eras. It was interesting to finally understand the punishments I have so often read about.