Customer Reviews

Duh! The Stupid History Of The Human Race

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you are looking for the perfect Christmas gift, this one-size-fits-most book is jam packed with delightful gems of human stupidity. It's an easy read filled with one stupid anecdote after another. Designed to keep you in stitches, while at the same time you struggle to accept how totally absurd humans can be, it more than delivers. (The infamous Florida butterfly ballot is destined for a future edition.) Mr. Fenster's "How to Destupify" section is particularly clever and challenging. Bravo to Mr. Fenster for this amusing and entertaining collection of historical, I mean hysterical, significance. The next time you feel like crying, turn to any page in this book and enjoy a good belly laugh instead. Like most of you, I've engaged in my share of lame, stupid acts. However, buying this book is one of the smartest things I've ever done.

Bob Fenster's DUH is a remarkable piece which demonstrates that the funniest characters are those which are real. Parts of this are absolute screams. DUH would make an excellent Christmas gift for anyone on your list who likes THE ONION, Dave Barry, Jerry Seinfeld, or Monty Python.

A good book to read once, but I regret buying it. While most of the stories are fun, they are (mostly?) urban legends. The book "Darwin Awards" was better since it told which stories were confirmed to be true.

I was also disappointed by misinformation in the book, even with my education I knew many things to be false. At times the author's attitude is presented too strongly.

All in all, not a bad book, but I still prefer the "Darwin Awards" series of books when I want to laugh at human stupidity.

The first problem with this book is the title, which is grammatically incorrect. It should have been titled "The History of Stupidity of the Human Race." By calling it the "stupid history" one can only surmise that the intent is to call the book stupid! The second problem with this book are the historical inaccuracies contained therein, of which there are several. Some are minor (Fenster gives the date of the mass suicide at Jonestown as 1976 - it was actually 1978), but when you see enough of them, then the entire scope of Fenster's reporting becomes suspect. Did he bother to check his facts? The third problem with this book are Fenster's editorial remarks on the material he presents. Humorous anecdotes about stupidity stand alone, without need for embellishment. Thus, the best books along these lines just report the facts and leave the reader to laugh. However, what you get here is a constant stream of editorial remarks from Fenster regarding his own personal political viewpoints, which, if you don't happen to agree with him, detracts markedly from the humor value of this book. One or two good laughs, but my advice is to save your money and take a pass on this one.

Yes, indeed, this particular title caught my eye when I was browsing on the Humor shelves at Border's last summer. I took a look at the back description, and then flipped through the first few sections, and I then decided it was definetly worth a read!This author, who I'd never heard of before, has done an incredibly excellent job in documenting Humanity's dumb doings, from the modern age, to politics, the military, sports, science, crime, and all of the foolish and crazy historical figures that have contributed to all of history's stupidity. Admittedly, I found that I could not read this all at once, it took a period of a few weeks to absorb this tome, and take it all in and really enjoy it. Eventually, it was worth it. To tell the truth, I found this book really entertaining. Buy it for yourself sometime, you'll find that logic doesn't dictate it and declare it to be so, it's based on, yes, that's right, sheer stupidity! Hey, if you can't figure something out, just laugh at the absurdity of it all, right? But, you know, DUHHHH, that's just the way I feel! You know about some of those other things you read or watch, and that you can just feel the intelligence gradually drain from your being? No concern about that here!You'll get smarter from reading this! Hey, that's the truth! Would I lie?

When I got my first copy I honestly didn't know what to expect. I bought it mostly because of the title. But what a fantastic book. It's a lot of fun, very funny and super fast to read. It just keeps coming at you. The author Bob Fenster must be some sort of weird guy or at least he has a wonderfully weird outlook on life. I've just ordered four more copies of "Duh" for our kids for Christmas.

No fiction, no humor, matter how cleverly crafted, can surpass the utter idiocy of *real human beings*. The author has captured the essence of our human struggle to cope with daily life in this *hilarious* ode to stupidity. I guarantee that you'll not only laugh 'til your sides split, but will find yourself quoting many of the entries as I have been doing. This book would make the perfect stocking stuffer from anyone on your Christmas list with an off-beat sense-of-humor.

First, if you can tolerate a book with such a title in your bookshelf, continue reading.

This book is divided in three parts: Chronicles, questions and advice.

The contents of the first one, the longest, are just too much... stupid. Unbelievable stupid. Surely you have already heard or read about many of them, but others will look to you just as inventions of someone to get attention (you remember those guys in junior high, don't you?).

The second part is very similart to the first one. It tries always to show that everyone in earth is stupid.
Just as in the first part, I realized that even it's a small book and easy to read (two lines to one page per chronicle), I become saturated after some minutes.

The third and last part becomes much better than the others. It gives you some interesting advice, though I cannot say how useful it would be for you.

If, by chance, you run out of topics for conversation, this book would give you plenty of them, but take them all with a grain of salt (be skeptic). I don't think it would be easy to find support for the hundreds of anecdotes in this book, that is, sources to show them true.

Talk about stupid history--this writer should be in the book somewhere. Some good items in the front but then Fenster let his left-wing liberal views shine as bright as his negative attitude toward virtually everything. Not the least bit cute or funny. He should have quit while he was ahead on a few items, instead, it looks like he tossed about for any liberal trashy ideas to insert as filler. Don't buy this one. Thank goodness (and there is goodness in the world!) I only paid one dollar for it at a book sale. Not even worth that but at least I discovered how seemingly hate-filled some liberals are, as if I didn't already know. Oh, did I say something about accuracy? Don't look for it in this book. Trashaway! It deserves a zero star.

Not for those who accept the "conventional wisdom" or other varieties of the intellectually non-curious. If that does not describe you, you will likely find his humor is brightly unconventional and just the thing wanted.