Historical Megadeath
From Bravo, a perennial beacon of interesting information in an otherwise murky world, comes this nice little historical context: Selected Death Tolls for Wars, Massacres and Atrocities Before the 20th Century, as well as Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century. I’m not sure what this means, actually; abstracting war into however many millions of people end up dying seems to tapdance around the reality somewhat. But if you’re going to make meaningful comparisons between these things, you need to start somewhere, I guess.
