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Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism

Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism
By Umberto Eco

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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. In this series of provocative, passionate, and witty essays, Umberto Eco examines a wide range of phenomena, from Harry Potter, the Tower of Babel, talk shows, and the Enlightenment to The Da Vinci Code/ What led us, he asks, into this age of hot wars and media populism, and how was it sold to us as progress?

In Turning Back the Clock, the bestselling author and respected scholar turns his famous intellect toward events both local and global to look at where our troubled world is headed.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #226609 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-09-22
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 384 pages

Features

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 TURNING BACK THE CLOCK
 
"A collection of charming, bite-size missives . . . Turning Back the Clock is among the season’s sprightlier works of nonfiction."—The New York Observer
 
PRAISE FOR UMBERTO ECO
 
"One of the most influential thinkers of our time."--Los Angeles Times
 
"Eco combines scholarship with a love of paradox and a quirky, sometimes outrageous, sense of humor."--The Atlantic Monthly

From the Inside Flap

"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
 
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.

Customer Reviews

Turning Back To Reason5
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.



Umberto Eco essays, articles, speeches4
"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.

Reading this will make your mind grow5
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.