Apocalypse Postponed (Perspectives) [Paperback]

Umberto Eco (Author), Robert Lumley (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 1994 | Series: Perspectives

This collection gathers Eco's main writings on mass culture published in a wide variety of journals and newspapers from the mid-50s to the late 1980s. Opening with an anti-Adornian survey of theories of mass culture, Eco goes on to explore such exotica as La Cicciolina, Charlie Brown, Orwell, Fellini, Italian independent radio and the "genius industry". Umberto Eco is a semiologist and medievalist, and is the author of "The Name of the Rose" and "Faith in Fakes".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Best known for his novels The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum , Eco, a semiotics professor at the University of Bologna, explores mass media, politics, mass culture and counterculture in this collection of erudite essays from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s. A mixed bag, the book includes a structural analysis of bad taste, a report on independent, freewheeling radio stations in Italy and a cogent reading of George Orwell's 1984 as a criticism not only of Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism but also of bourgeois mass culture. Dropping numerous allusions to the Italian cultural scene, Eco applies semiotics to decipher the signs and symbols in Charles Schulz's comic strip, Peanuts , Italian product design, vacuous political discourse, church pamphlets, Chinese comic strips and Fellini's movie about television, Ginger and Fred.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Teacher (Semiotics/Univ. of Bologna), editor, cultural commentator, and novelist (Foucault's Pendulum, 1989), Eco offers refreshing commentary on cultural life, primarily in Italy, from the mid-1960s to the late '80s, when intellectuals were especially alarmed by the emergence of a mass or pop culture. Dedicating his book to those he calls the ``apocalyptics,'' cultural elites who fear the destruction of their world by mass communication and popular entertainment, he offers historical surveys of key terms such as ``culture,'' ``intellectual,'' and ``design,'' bringing to these terms more inclusive definitions that embrace comic books, TV, popular music, and a whole range of experience that he includes in the idea of civilization. He recalls introducing his collection of Superman comics at a distinguished European conference of theologians and philosophers discussing mythography; republishes his famous essay from the New York Review of Books on ``Peanuts'' (the ``microcosm,'' the ``primitive epic'') for ``humanists who do not read comic strips''; and to prove that ``the medium is not always the message,'' he analyzes the official comic strips of the Chinese communist government. In lucid, persuasive, and artfully illustrated essays, Eco expands the range of what is acceptable as culture: television programs, computers, popular music, posters, the whole counterculture, anything that does not require paper made from trees, for, he concludes in a typically gnomic remark, ``every new book reduces the quantity of oxygen.'' Although Eco occasionally sounds foreign and anachronistic, he displays a universal sympathy and a comprehensive eye that ranges from Snoopy, who has ``no hope of promotion,'' to the ``Genius Industry''--those poor eccentrics who believe themselves to be victims of their own originality, publishing and reviewing their own books. Eco is a true original--substantial, lucid, humane, and a great deal of fun. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: BFI Publishing (May 26, 1994)
• ISBN-10: 0851704468
• ISBN-13: 978-0851704463
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,814,816 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Umberto Eco (born 5 January 1932) is an Italian novelist, medievalist, semiotician, philosopher, and literary critic.

He is the author of several bestselling novels, The Name of The Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of The Day Before, and Baudolino. His collections of essays include Five Moral Pieces, Kant and the Platypus, Serendipities, Travels In Hyperreality, and How To Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays.

He has also written academic texts and children's books.


Photography (c) Università Reggio Calabria

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dificil al principio pero excelente al final., December 29, 1998

By 

Jose Manuel A. Falcon (Mexico City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apocalypse Postponed (Perspectives) (Hardcover)

Obviamente no es un libro para cualquier gente de un humor cualquiera. Sin embargo tampoco es totalmente diseñado para un intelectual consumado. El libro viene a ser una nueva muestra del enorme talento y conocimientos de Eco. Amé el analisis que hace sobre el "comic" y sobre el mito de Superman. Leer a este intelectual me ha motivado a estudiar a traves de la lectura, me ha dado herramientas y me he vuelto mas critico.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A little to Italian for this American reader., December 29, 2000

By 

Shane Tiernan (St. Petersburg, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Apocalypse Postponed (Perspectives) (Paperback)

I actually read this book quite some time ago but remember being ,for the most part, lost by references to details that were maybe too 'detailed'. I do believe Eco is brilliant but many of the references in the book were to ideas or concepts native to Italy and times before I was alive.

My distaste could be because after _Focault's Pendulum_ I expected so much.