Whack Job

A brilliant and bloody examination of the axe’s foundational role in human history,from prehistoric violenceto war and executionsto newspaper headlines and popular culture. For as long as the axe has been in our handswe have used it to kill. Much like the wheelthe boatand the telephonethe axe is a transformative piece of technologyΓÇöone that has been with us since prehistory. And just as early humans used the axe to chop down treeshunt for foodand whittle toolsthey also used it to murder. Over timethis particular use has endured: as the axe evolved over centuries to fit the needs of new agriculturalarchitecturaland social developmentso have our lethal uses for it. Whack Job is the story of the axefirst as a convenient danger and then an anachronismas told through the murders it has been employed in throughout history: from the first axe murder nearly half a million years agoto the brutal harnessing of the axe in warfareto its use in King Henry VIII’s favorite method of executionto Lizzie Borden and the birth of modern pop culture. Whack Job sheds brilliant light on this familiar implementthis most human of weapons. This is a critical examination of violencean exploration of how technology shapes human conflictthe cruel and sacred rituals of execution and battleand the ways humanity fits even the most savage impulses into narratives of the past and present.