The question of extreme human behavior, both good and bad, is an intriguing one, especially when trying to measure one life against all others. Was Hitler evil on the extreme end of a normal human scale, or were his acts out of all proportion to the rest of humanity, placing him on his own continuum? Was Shakespeare brilliant out of all proportion to normal humanity, or was he merely one of the best on a more Earthbound scale? Journalist Ron Rosenbaum has made a career out of attempting to answer such questions.