Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism [Hardcover]

Umberto Eco (Author), Alastair McEwen (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2007 | ISBN-10: 0151013519 | ISBN-13: 978-0151013517 | Edition: First Printing

The time: 2000 to 2005, the years of neoconservatism, terrorism, the twenty-four-hour news cycle, the ascension of Bush, Blair, and Berlusconi, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Umberto Eco’s response is a provocative, passionate, and witty series of essays—which originally appeared in the Italian newspapers La Repubblica and L’Espresso—that leaves no slogan unexamined, no innovation unexposed. What led us into this age of hot wars and media populism, and how was it sold to us as progress? Eco discusses such topics as racism, mythology, the European Union, rhetoric, the Middle East, technology, September 11, medieval Latin, television ads, globalization, Harry Potter, anti-Semitism, logic, the Tower of Babel, intelligent design, Italian street demonstrations, fundamentalism, The Da Vinci Code, and magic and magical thinking.

The famous author and respected scholar shows his practical, engaged side: an intellectual involved in events both local and global, a man concerned about taste, politics, education, ethics, and where our troubled world is headed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Internationally renowned novelist and philosopher Eco (Foucault's Pendulum; The Name of the Rose) delivers a provocative and enlightening ride in this collection of essays first published in two leading Italian newspapers. He delves deeply into such subjects as Mideastern and European politics, myth, prejudice, globalization, The Da Vinci Code, magical thinking, rhetoric, religion, intelligent design and Harry Potter. The friction between his imagination, interpretation and reflection makes for pyrotechnic prose, springing from abundant facts and carefully constructed theories. He dissects war as a bloody game where we did everything possible to ensure that our adversaries did not achieve their goals, proclaiming that neowars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be won by the military. While the flow of his reasoning can be serpentine, Eco challenges us to reconsider the power of the media, the right of privacy, the sometimes disturbing manners of foreigners, the poison of anti-Semitism and September 11. The resulting book details fresh approaches to wrestling with some of the most complex issues of our time.
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Review

PRAISE FOR UMBERTO ECO

"The spirit of enlightenment breathes through the writings of Umberto Eco . . . [he] is an urbane, genial writer who brings calmness and clarity to every subject he treats." --Los Angeles Times

"Eco's double life as a theorist of communication and a practitioner of fiction makes him exceptionally well suited to entertain and inform . . . Eco is a master of saying what it is we can, with confidence, say, and he says it wonderfully." --San Francisco Chronicle

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; First Printing edition (October 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151013519
• ISBN-13: 978-0151013517
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #439,219 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

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turning Back To Reason, January 1, 2008

By 

Caesar M. Warrington (Lansdowne, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism (Hardcover)

Nowadays, when most authors writing on social and politcal events or trends are motivated primarily by their partisan agendas, it is a refreshing and enlightening experience to read from someone like Umberto Eco. The acclaimed author of FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM and THE NAME Of The ROSE, who also happens to be the world's only famous medievalist and semiotician, is an endangered species: an original thinker, whose ideas and opinions derive not from organizational or ideological loyalties, but rather originate out of independent observation and evaluation. I may disagree with Eco on more than a few things inside this book (as, for example, his uncharacterically unfair treatment of both Mel Gibson and the PASSION Of The CHRIST in the essay "Hands Off My Son!"), but at least these thoughts are his own.

TURNING BACK The CLOCK: HOT WARS And MEDIA POPULISM is a collection of essays based on a number of Umberto Eco's articles and lectures between 2000-2005. The majority of these pieces originally appeared in the Italian newspapers L'espresso and La Repubblica, they are short, informal, even humorous. They are also, however, very serious in their intent, and are models as to what opinion pieces in journalism should be.

Eco's writing here takes on everything from what he terms paleowar vs. neowar (in the essay "Some Reflections on War and Peace), media monopolism and movies to HARRY POTTER and THE DA VINCI CODE (from "Those Who Don't Believe in God Believe in Everything), from Nigerian beauty pageants (in "Beauty Queens, Fundamentalists and Lepers") to political correctness and multiculturalism to Islamist terrorism and Islamophobia as well.

Within this book's 41 collected essays, instead of bullying or haranguing his readers, Eco offers the commonsense and moderation that was once the hallmark of classic humanism and liberalism: That we need not to abandon all values and all standards in order to achieve a tolerant and pluralistic society.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Umberto Eco essays, articles, speeches, March 1, 2008

By 

M. A. Krul (London, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism (Hardcover)

"Turning Back the Clock" is the title of an admirable and entertaining collection of essays, articles, speeches, etc. by famed Italian writer Umberto Eco. Most of these are articles written as a columnist for La Repubblica, and the collection is organized by content, not chronology. Fortunately, it is not necessary to have read any of Eco's novels to enjoy this book.

Eco is of course a gifted writer, and not just in the realm of fiction. While it is perhaps necessary, in particular for the political essays, to have a fairly substantial knowledge of Italian politics and history, one can on the other hand also learn a lot about Italy from Eco's essays. And this is not limited to Italian topics: Eco discusses everything one would expect from him, politics, science, technology, history, philosophy, literature, and art. Consistently reasonable, balanced, and witty, Eco may not be the most provoking and startling of essaysists, but he is sure to be informative and challenging.

In my opinion, the most interesting articles are those where Eco does not directly address current events, but rather talks more generally about the situation of modern European culture(s), about historical and philosophical subjects, and the use of language. The high point here are perhaps the final articles, one of which is a speech given to the Milanesiana in 2001 where he discusses the phrase "dwarves on the shoulders of giants", as well as one on how to accept one's mortality. I can definitely recommend this book to intellectuals.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading this will make your mind grow, February 18, 2008

By 

Jonathan Greenlee - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism (Hardcover)

It does not matter if you agree with everything Eco says - in fact I think that is impossible. The point of reading these articles is to grow your mind and awareness of other ways of thinking.