Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious!
Review: As most everyone else has said, this book is extremely funny. Cuppy's use of footnotes to provide the 'punchline' to many of his wry jokes is genius. His humour never grows tiresome, and pulls the reader through the book, which will be devoured quickly. It's nice to be reminded that many of our cultural and historical heroes and heroines were, at their core, human beings. Oh, and DON'T LET THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT PUT YOU OFF! Personally, I could never sit still through an entire history lecture, but this book positively held my attention. A great read!
Rating: 
Summary: Will Cuppy is to history what Mad Magazine is to literature
Review: By page two I felt cheated. It is poorly written, in a smirking quasi-intellectual style that is neither funny nor educational. This is an awful book. Don't buy it unless you have an off balance table and you need something just this size to slip under the table leg.
Rating:
Summary: Will Cuppy is to history what Mad Magazine is to literature
Review: By page two I felt cheated. It is poorly written, in a smirking quasi-intellectual style that is neither funny nor educational. This is an awful book. Don't buy it unless you have an off balance table and you need something just this size to slip under the table leg.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant! Funny! Brilliant! Funny!
Review: Cuppy was brilliant! He died, the poor dear, before the world realized his brilliance. ARGH! This book is hilarious! American! Satirical. Oh, you have to read it to understand! In this book he selected famous persons throughout history (Lady Godiva, Attila the Hun, Henry VII, Lucrezia Borgias, Louis 14th, Cleopatra etc) and did an amazing amount of research about their lives, and wrote about the quirky parts of their lives, I love it! Read it! Read it!
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Summary: Superlative!!! Why couldn't history class be like this.
Review: Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody is THE book for those who have found history dull and dry. I first became aquanted with this book in highschool, over 20 years ago, and have often quoted it since. Will Cuppy has made the great figures of history into living people with all of their foibles and shortcomings as well as accomplishments exposed. All of the greats from ancient Egypt to Queen Victoria are skewered here. William the Conquer was "a manly little fellow, always fighting and wrangling and knocking the other children down...till his father died near Jerusalem. Then he became more independant and took to putting out peoples eyes." Henry VIII "has been much criticzied for beheading two of his wives, but he only let the law take it's course. ... He let some of them live, for those were the days of chivalary when Knighhood was in flower." The only sad note in the history of this marvolous book is that Mr. Cuppy did not see it published. As the introduction notes he died before it was assembled and his heirs used his collection of 3x5 index cards to compile the best book on Western Civilization ever written.
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Summary: The book for Historians
Review: I first read this book from my fathers library in the late 1960's. In college I learned of the secret History underground that made knowledge of this book THE required text to understanding history. As another reviewer has written, this book could replace whole libraries of reference material. This is because Mr. Cuppy could reduce complex Ideas and Actions into a 6 word sentence. Few people can do it as well as he could. From time to time a writer will come out with Mr. Cuppy's style. The book, "Hail to the Chiefs", about American Presidents, is one of the best (Alas, it is out of print as well!). Find this book and enjoy your past. Then look at a dusty old tome and the latest news from Washington and have a good laugh.
Rating:
Summary: Buy This Book-Give It To A Friend
Review: I have bought this book numerous times and given it away. It is the most entertaining and arguably truthful history books I've read. It manages to make historical icons accessible and human. It is also painfully funny. It's too bad Will Cuppy couldn't have written more.
Rating:
Summary: Strange Humour
Review: I love this title. I read it as a translate in persian long time ago and it is still one of the best books I have ever read. Eventhough I read it in the non-original language, its different texture of humour and the unique style was quite obvious. The writer attacks the famous people of the history with his amazingly cruel and sarcastic language and remind us to think twice about some people whose greatness is usually considered beyond any doubt.
Rating:
Summary: the funniest history book ever written
Review: I must have read this book twenty times at least, and I never get tired of it. Every time it seems just as funny, as Will Cuppy tells us about the lives of historical characters, from Cheops ( or khufu) through to Catherine the Great, taking in such diverse characters as Cleopatra, Attila the hun, Lady Godiva, henry the eight, John Smith, and miles Standish. His wonderful dry comments are hilarious, as on Charlemagne who was born in the dark ages when people were not very bright. They have been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until finally the are like they are now'Or on the American revolution , started because the colonists had to pay takes to which their consent had not been asked ' today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it'This is a sublime book, the one I'd take with me to a desert island if i had to choose only one.
Rating:
Summary: the funniest history book ever written
Review: I must have read this book twenty times at least, and I never get tired of it. Every time it seems just as funny, as Will Cuppy tells us about the lives of historical characters, from Cheops ( or khufu) through to Catherine the Great, taking in such diverse characters as Cleopatra, Attila the hun, Lady Godiva, henry the eight, John Smith, and miles Standish. His wonderful dry comments are hilarious, as on Charlemagne who was born in the dark ages when people were not very bright. They have been getting brighter and brighter ever since, until finally the are like they are now'Or on the American revolution , started because the colonists had to pay takes to which their consent had not been asked ' today we pay taxes but our consent has been asked, and we have told the government to go ahead and tax us all they want to. We like it'This is a sublime book, the one I'd take with me to a desert island if i had to choose only one.
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