A History of the Guillotine

A History of the Guillotine is an ironic, literate, and scrupulously authentic account of the instrument which was adopted in the name of humanitarianism but came to be identified with the terror and ferocity of the French Revolution. Alister Kershaw traces the history of this infamous machine from when it was first proposed to the National Assembly, and over the course of his story reveals an abundance of astonishing and little known facts.