Product Description
by Umberto Eco (Author), Richard Dixon (Translator)
The final collection from the bestselling author of The Name of the Rose and one of the most influential, and entertaining, intellectuals of the last century--essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsession.
"Underscores the writer's profound erudition, lively wit, and passion for ideas of all shapes and sizes . . . Eco's pleasure in such explorations is obvious and contagious." --Booklist
The essays in Inventing the Enemy cover a wide range of topics on which Eco wrote and lectured, including a disquisition on the theme that runs through his novel The Prague Cemetery--every country needs an enemy, and if it doesn't have one, must invent it; a discussion of ideas that inspired his earlier novels (and in the process he takes us on an exploration of lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world); an examination of Saint Thomas Aquinas's notions about the soul of an unborn child; and censorship, violence, and WikiLeaks.
"True wit and wisdom coexist with fierce scholarship inside Umberto Eco, a writer who actually knows a thing or two about being truly human." --Buffalo News
"Thought provoking . . . nuanced . . . the collection amply shows off Eco's sophisticated, agile mind." --Publishers Weekly
Back Jacket
Underscores the writer s profound erudition, lively wit, and passion for ideas of all shapes and sizes . . . Eco s pleasure in such explorations is obvious and contagious. Booklist
Inventing the Enemy covers a wide range of topics on which Eco has written and lectured over the past ten years: from a disquisition on the theme that runs through his recent novel The Prague Cemetery every country needs an enemy, and if it doesn t have one, must invent it to a discussion of ideas that have inspired his earlier novels, taking us on an exploration of lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world; from indignant reviews of James Joyce s Ulysses by fascist journalists of the 1920s and 1930s, to an examination of Saint Thomas Aquinas s notions about the soul of an unborn child, to censorship and violence and WikiLeaks.
These are essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsession by one of the world s most esteemed scholars and critically acclaimed, best-selling novelists.
True wit and wisdom coexist with fierce scholarship inside Umberto Eco, a writer who actually knows a thing or two about being truly human. Buffalo News
"Thought provoking . . . nuanced . . . the collection amply shows off Eco's sophisticated, agile mind." Publishers Weekly
[AU PHOTO] UMBERTO ECO is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the best-selling novels The Prague Cemetery, The Name of the Rose, and Foucault s Pendulum and many collections of essays. A semiotician, philosopher, medievalist, and for many years a professor at the University of Bologna, Eco is now president of the Scuola Superiore di Studi Umanistici there. He lives in Milan.
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Author Biography
UMBERTO ECO is the author of The Prague Cemetery, The Name of the Rose, and numerous collections of essays. Formerly a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, he is now president of the Scuola Superiore de Studi Umanistici in Bologna.
