When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain

Product Description

Obscure and addictive true tales from history told by one of our most entertaining historians, Giles Milton

The first installment in Giles Milton's outrageously entertaining series, History's Unknown Chapters: colorful and accessible, intelligent and illuminating, Milton shows his customary historical flair as he delves into the little-known stories from the past.

There's the cook aboard the Titanic, who pickled himself with whiskey and survived in the icy seas where most everyone else died. There's the man who survived the atomic bomb in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And there's many, many more.

Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the female Robinson Crusoe, Hitler's final hours, Japan's deadly balloon bomb and the emperor of the United States, these tales deserve to be told.

Top Reviews

History's amusing lost stories
by edsetiadi (4 out of 5 stars)
June 11, 2017

This is a light reading from history's lost facts and forgotten stories, from late 19th century until mid 20th century. Perfect for laid back weekend read.

It consist of 50 short true stories with pretty wide range of topics from forced-canibalism, to adventurer who bought his wife at a white-slave auction, the black people who became an attraction at their zoos, the kamikaze pilot who lived to tell his story, notorious jail breaks, bizarre murder trials, to the richest men in the world, and of course to what happened with Lenin's brain and how Hitler's erratic behaviour was caused by the 80-plus drugs he consumed daily.

The author, Giles Milton, is a bestseller author of narrative non-fiction books, which immediately shows since the very 1st paragraph. The true stories read like a gripping novel.

I'm already purchasing the sequal of this book as we speak.
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Quirky, Fascinating and Sometimes Lurid
by Richard B. Schwartz,Top Contributor: Philosophy (5 out of 5 stars)
August 6, 2018

Giles Milton is a popular historian with a taste for the strange and bizarre. This book is actually a combination of two volumes, here joined together with their original "for further reading" addenda. It consists of individual stories, each approximately 4 pp. in length. There is a story about Hitler's cocaine use and a story about the removal of Lenin's brain, but they are not the central foci of the book. There are stories about a Japanese sex murderer, an Australian (and a Nazi) prison escape, a story about the woman who impersonated a man so that she could participate in WWI, wartime animal heroes (a dog and a carrier pigeon, to be specific), et al. The stories are all fascinating and the pages fly by. The book can be read "in" and the stories read in any order, since each is separate unto itself.

The writing is lively. Some of the stories are 'adult' in nature, but not pornographic in intent. If you like this book, Giles Milton has others and I would highly recommend his recent book, CHURCHILL'S MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE. This is not a set of discrete stories, but a full account of the British units which specialized in sabotage, assassinations and other not-always-dirty tricks utilized in the war against the Nazis.

If you have a taste for quirky, sometimes lurid, never dull historiography, it is time for you to read Giles Milton.
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Very interesting, but very short stories
by margieebee (3 out of 5 stars)
May 9, 2016

I'm surprised this book got such great reviews, but I guess I should have read said reviews before purchasing as it would have told me what I needed to know or should have known...

This IS a good book! Very interesting short stories, HOWEVER, "short" being the key word. Each story is only about 2 pages of very easy reading. I appreciated this to some extent, as I've had a hard time digging in to a book for fun lately (I'm an attorney). But, I guess I was just yearning for a bit more. I would have enjoyed this book more there were less stories, but more info presented on each story that was included To the author's credit, there is a list for suggested further reading following each section (approx. 3 titles to pursue with regard to each story presented).

This book would probably be appropriate for a high schooler, but I wouldn't recommend for much younger audiences, as most of the stories have to do violence, death, and drugs!
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incredible book that I wished would never end
by fukkfascism (5 out of 5 stars)
July 19, 2017

I pretty much read this in one sitting and was dismayed to get to the last page and I immediately checked to see if there was another one. It told me incredible things I never knew, about important historical events and characters; to a history junkie with a taste for a good story this is the purest smack
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What a wonderful book. It was a quick pick-up since the ...
by Patrick Elzinga (5 out of 5 stars)
August 10, 2017

What a wonderful book. It was a quick pick-up since the chapters are only a couple of pages long each. Definitely something to look at if you are interested in some unique untold, or under told, stories.
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Fascinating Pieces of History
by Lynn (4 out of 5 stars)
October 6, 2017

A collection of little known stories from history that are quite fascinating. I believe the book contains 25 stories so they're all short, fun reads.
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A nice collection of historical trivia
by Click (5 out of 5 stars)
July 23, 2017

A collection of vignettes about moments in history you probably never knew. Most are 4 pages in length and are as easy to read as they are entertaining.
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A must read
by RICO (5 out of 5 stars)
May 1, 2019

If you love history you need to pick this book up
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Oh, Hitler...
by Michael (5 out of 5 stars)
July 1, 2017

Gave this as a gift but read it myself first. A fun, excellent read. Like going down an internet wormhole, but in convenient book form.
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Bits
by Wisconsin resident (4 out of 5 stars)
May 21, 2018

Compilation of tidbits from history-- a bit trending to the macabre. Good short-reading-time book.

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