A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

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Granada Publishing Limited 8 Grafton Street London W1X 3LA Published by Granada Publishing 1984 Copyright © Colin Wilson 1984 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Wilson, Colin A criminal history of mankind, 1. crime and criminals — History I. Title 364.09 - HV6O25 ISBN 0-246-11636-6 Printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Scanned : Mr Blue Sky Proofed : Its Not Raining Version : 2.0 Date : 03/12/2002
INTRODUCTION I was about twelve years old when I came upon a bundle of magazines tied with string in a secondhand bookshop - the original edition of H. G. Wells’s Outline of History, published in 1920. Since some of the parts were missing, I got the whole pile for a few shillings. It was, I must admit, the pictures that attracted me - splendid full-page colour illustrations of plesiosaurs on a Mesozoic beach; Neanderthal men snarling in the entrance to their cave; the giant rock-hewn statues of Rameses II and his consort at Abu Simbel. Far more than Wells’s text, these brought a breathless sensation of the total sweep of world history. Even today I feel a flash of the old magical excitement as I look at them - that peculiar delight that children feel when someone says, ‘Once upon a time ...’ In 1946, Penguin Books republished ten volumes of Wells to celebrate his eightieth birthday, including the condensed version of the Outline, A Short History of the World. It was in this edition that I discovered that strange little postscript entitled ‘Mind at the End of Its Tether’. I found it so frustrating and incomprehensible that I wanted to tear my hair: ‘Since [1940] a tremendous series of events has forced upon the intelligent observer the realisation that the human story has already come to an end and that Homo sapiens, as he has been pleased to call himself, is in his present form played out.’ And this had not been written at the beginning of the Second World War - which might have been understandable - but after Hitler’s defeat. When I came across the earlier edition of the Short History I found that, like the Outline, it ends on a note of uplift: ‘What man has done, the little triumphs of his present state, and all this history we have told, form but the prelude to the things that man has yet to do.’ And the Outline ends with a chapter predicting that mankind will find peace through the League of Nations and world government. (It was Wells who coined the phrase ‘the war to end war’.) What had happened? Many years later, I put the question to a friend of Wells, the biblical historian Hugh Schonfield. His answer was that Wells had been absolutely certain that he had the solutions to all the problems of the human race, and that he became embittered when he realised that no one took him seriously. At the time, that seemed a plausible explanation. But since then I have come upon what I believe to be the true one. In 1936, Wells produced a curious short novel called The Croquet Player, which is startlingly different from anything he had written before. It reveals that Wells had become aware of man’s capacity for sheer brutality and sadism. The Outline of History plays down the tortures and massacres; in fact, it hardly mentions them. Wells seems totally devoid of that feeling for evil that made Arnold Toynbee, in his Study of History, speak of ‘the horrifying sense of sin manifest in human affairs’. Wells’s view of crime was cheerfully pragmatic. In The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind he spoke of it as ‘artificial’, the result of ‘restrictions imposed upon the normal “natural man” in order that the community may work and exist.’ He seems quite unaware that the history of mankind since about 2500 B.C. is little more than a nonstop record of murder, bloodshed and violence. The brutalities of the Nazi period forced this upon his attention. But it seems to have been the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the revelations of Belsen and Buchenwald, which convinced him that man was bound to destroy himself from the beginning, and that ‘the final end is now closing in on mankind’. I am not suggesting that Wells’s view of history was superficial or wrong-headed; as far as it went, it was brilliantly perceptive. As a late Victorian, he was aware of the history of mankind as a marvellous story of invention and achievement, of a long battle against danger and hardship that
Page 1: A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND by Co
Page 5 and 6: We may feel that Wells must have be
Page 7 and 8: primitive societies can give their
Page 9 and 10: community. Frazier’s was childish
Page 11 and 12: efinement: that instead of merely a
Page 13 and 14: strong ... And Myra, who regards hi
Page 15 and 16: etween two homes a few hundred yard
Page 17 and 18: parted with three thousand marks to
Page 19 and 20: This is an observation of central i
Page 21 and 22: ‘blocked out’ state. And Myra H
Page 23 and 24: ank messenger. The man asked for ti
Page 25 and 26: sharp rebuke. He is making society
Page 27 and 28: man’s earliest ancestors. It look
Page 29 and 30: everyone reasons: if civilised man
Page 31 and 32: acquaintances who form his ‘tribe
Page 33 and 34: Yet the warning about extrapolating
Page 35 and 36: or so I began to feel that I’d go
Page 37 and 38: city, with its impersonality and ov
Page 39 and 40: would instantly, and without hesita
Page 41 and 42: give it up to devote herself to bei
Page 43 and 44: World Health Organisation had issue
Page 45 and 46: help them. If they possess some deg
Page 47 and 48: wrapped-up goose under one arm and
Page 49 and 50: hand out. In Dannemora he leapt fro
Page 51 and 52: exterminated, and that therefore he
Page 53 and 54:
The same motivation can be seen in
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‘locks’ him so that he cannot e
Page 57 and 58:
MacDougald also came across the ast
Page 59 and 60:
convinced he really wanted to know,
Page 61 and 62:
All these complex mechanisms have b
Page 63 and 64:
So saying, I seized her by the hair
Page 65 and 66:
his family and his animals lived an
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This is why those early civilisatio
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problem of criminality: xenophobia,
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And he vanished from the face of th
Page 73 and 74:
exciting - large breasts, full lips
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ancestors were far less ‘primitiv
Page 77 and 78:
This still leaves unexplained how t
Page 79 and 80:
can’t be happening.’ Gosmann di
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show that we are all split-brain pa
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gorilla brain is far less ‘latera
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of prisoners ‘trussed in a variet
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It is appropriate that the scene of
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miles away and the sun well over a
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‘idling’; as soon as she began
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over the covers, and he says, what
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wealth) to satisfy their desires; t
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ecause we are intimidated by societ
Page 99 and 100:
If we are to understand the history
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longed to hurt her, to make her cry
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their soldiers are allowed to loot
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seas were still full of pirates - e
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an enormous theatre, capable of hol
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NO MEAN CITY These citizens of Rome
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History (Book 5): ‘So began the f
Page 113 and 114:
were talking about. Rome had overru
Page 115 and 116:
had ever seen. He had the gates of
Page 117 and 118:
No one could accuse the Romans of b
Page 119 and 120:
Meanwhile Pompey’s ally Julius Ca
Page 121 and 122:
there were holidays on 117 days of
Page 123 and 124:
It seems surprising that Caligula s
Page 125 and 126:
are told that Paulinus punished tri
Page 127 and 128:
settee took the weight and, since A
Page 129 and 130:
murdered by one of his slaves - pro
Page 131 and 132:
In Nero, we can see the basic probl
Page 133 and 134:
So, over the course of many centuri
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the Messianists, had undergone a su
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death a German soothsayer who had p
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city at night, offering sodomy or f
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uildings should be handed back to t
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the rest ‘whom We judge demented
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civilisation developed, it was the
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penetrate very far; besides, the me
Page 149 and 150:
allowed some of his allies to slip
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entirely without foundation, Belisa
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Egypt. And the Jews, only just back
Page 155 and 156:
As the travellers move west over Pe
Page 157 and 158:
acquired a reputation for healing t
Page 159 and 160:
than two to one and still win an ov
Page 161 and 162:
exaggerated; when the Arabs conquer
Page 163 and 164:
ound to fall, said St Augustine, bu
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German ancestors. He would conquer
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England would have become an outpos
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also assassinated in the following
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vanished forever. Eighteen years la
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he was deported ran into a violent
Page 175 and 176:
But the lesson of the assassins goe
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‘Death to the French’. Frenchme
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of the world’, Emperor Frederick
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was no longer forced to sail the wa
Page 183 and 184:
were the Mongols. When Manchurian n
Page 185 and 186:
friendly reply. So Genghis ordered
Page 187 and 188:
And so the murder and pillage went
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of Islam. The reason for this was n
Page 191 and 192:
Europe - even Venice - in the thirt
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was done solely for the greater glo
Page 195 and 196:
not believe in the immortality of t
Page 197 and 198:
of its starvation, experienced a vi
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common, without serfs or lords...
Page 201 and 202:
Other poets learned quickly. France
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Venetians had only just concluded a
Page 205 and 206:
he remained convinced that he was a
Page 207 and 208:
the house of one Hugh Smyth, and
Page 209 and 210:
The boy Raffaello was told nothing
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enormous bribes - not just money bu
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captor was a man who held high idea
Page 215 and 216:
In fact, his victories were almost
Page 217 and 218:
Then he was allowed to go to Spain.
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the consecrated wafer does not real
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sinners. So God was a just and angr
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‘heresies’. To Eck’s delight,
Page 225 and 226:
good professional army and had to r
Page 227 and 228:
had started his movement twenty yea
Page 229 and 230:
Meanwhile, the English, under their
Page 231 and 232:
y no means at an end. Marlowe was d
Page 233 and 234:
complicated. It was a simple ellips
Page 235 and 236:
When Pope Innocent III ordered the
Page 237 and 238:
convent at Louviers, when it became
Page 239 and 240:
produces no art, literature, philos
Page 241 and 242:
In China, the old order continued t
Page 243 and 244:
ought to be a great conqueror, he f
Page 245 and 246:
political’ monsters in history, h
Page 247 and 248:
and the second brother exclaims: Ho
Page 249 and 250:
speech on the table). In Gin Lane,
Page 251 and 252:
the head with a carving knife, leav
Page 253 and 254:
Review and was full of political co
Page 255 and 256:
Robinson Crusoe was not, of course,
Page 257 and 258:
enormous sexual frustration that ex
Page 259 and 260:
The solitude in these blissful surr
Page 261 and 262:
was supposed to have smashed stocki
Page 263 and 264:
The countess was publicly branded a
Page 265 and 266:
publish his revolutionary Rights of
Page 267 and 268:
conceived on such generous lines, w
Page 269 and 270:
call the Holy Alliance. And they pr
Page 271 and 272:
philosopher who interested the youn
Page 273 and 274:
Marx was exultant; at last, the rev
Page 275 and 276:
means that Marx’s philosophy igno
Page 277 and 278:
the city marshal of London, a man n
Page 279 and 280:
11 P.M., Williamson served a drink
Page 281 and 282:
like the crimes of Caligula or Gill
Page 283 and 284:
In February 1828, a female vagrant
Page 285 and 286:
Under Fouché, the chief of police
Page 287 and 288:
complaining about?... Forger in Fra
Page 289 and 290:
that he was insane, stripping himse
Page 291 and 292:
in another remarkable case of the p
Page 293 and 294:
Cratchits - seemed to have them. Th
Page 295 and 296:
insurance. He married a second time
Page 297 and 298:
1886’ (p. 183). But a photograph
Page 299 and 300:
the more there was a sense of taboo
Page 301 and 302:
my first fuck.’ He enjoys making
Page 303 and 304:
Why? The girl who has introduced th
Page 305 and 306:
failed to grasp that all experience
Page 307 and 308:
paralysed the facial muscles on tha
Page 309 and 310:
Durrant was arrested. His friends a
Page 311 and 312:
murder for her sake.’ (Even Belle
Page 313 and 314:
furnaces and cattle stockyards. It
Page 315 and 316:
killing five. Paris, suddenly, was
Page 317 and 318:
omb exploded prematurely, blowing h
Page 319 and 320:
own laws. Various foreigners annexe
Page 321 and 322:
committed suicide by soaking her ma
Page 323 and 324:
thing to do, for today was Vidovdan
Page 325 and 326:
mankind. Ever since civilisation ha
Page 327 and 328:
After Esposito’s departure (he sp
Page 329 and 330:
the swamp. The child had been cryin
Page 331 and 332:
abolitionists used it as an additio
Page 333 and 334:
magnificent, with O’Banion in a s
Page 335 and 336:
Prohibition had turned small-time m
Page 337 and 338:
Schultz was not dead; he spent twen
Page 339 and 340:
insisting that he had been much mal
Page 341 and 342:
Bananas. Genovese seems to have bel
Page 343 and 344:
Ten years in jail had made Gallo de
Page 345 and 346:
has argued in his book Britain’s
Page 347 and 348:
the brothers ninety per cent of the
Page 349 and 350:
the trial, alleging that she had be
Page 351 and 352:
In Winchester jail it became clear
Page 353 and 354:
The twins decided that it might be
Page 355 and 356:
war) about whether Russia should at
Page 357 and 358:
As the show trials continued, there
Page 359 and 360:
Profit is produced by labour. And i
Page 361 and 362:
Germany and Italy. Prussia under th
Page 363 and 364:
is more like the adventurous ‘lon
Page 365 and 366:
continued their steady increase. By
Page 367 and 368:
and driving needles into his scrotu
Page 369 and 370:
or above-average intelligence: Kiir
Page 371 and 372:
eactions of the others: a young mot
Page 373 and 374:
In January 1959, a truck-driver nam
Page 375 and 376:
Todmachery (‘the best death-maker
Page 377 and 378:
identified as the ‘measuring man
Page 379 and 380:
‘urban guerrillas’ who called t
Page 381 and 382:
mostly ‘Provos’. The Provos ina
Page 383 and 384:
The 1970s also set new standards of
Page 385 and 386:
up. So, later, were Stan Walker’s
Page 387 and 388:
the killing of the two Bellingham g
Page 389 and 390:
credit cards. Shortly afterwards, h
Page 391 and 392:
scandalous. As Gordon Rattray Taylo
Page 393 and 394:
The worm’s eye view has introduce
Page 395 and 396:
that distinguishes him from the bru
Page 397 and 398:
that for most of the time it seems
Page 399 and 400:
Consider what happens if I come hom
Page 401 and 402:
Chicago rapist William Heirens bega
Page 403 and 404:
degree murder. The artist may also
Page 405:
But if this history of human evolut
show all

A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

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