An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed," "Mass Media and the Limits of Communication," "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures," and "In Search of Italian Genius," Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry.

Apocalypse Postponed

Politics & Social Sciences

UMBERTO ECO

Social Sciences

Flamingo

The Search for the Perfect Language

The Search for the Perfect Language

History

Fontana Press

... not merely interesting and novel, but also exceedingly provocative and heuristically fertile." ―The Review of Metaphysics... essential reading for anyone interesting in... the new reader-centered forms of criticism." ―Library JournalIn this erudite and imaginative book, Umberto Eco sets forth a dialectic between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ texts.

The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Hutchinson university library)

Literature & Fiction

HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd

The Middle Ages of James Joyce: The Aesthetics of Chaosmos

World Literature

Harvard University Press

How we know that a cat is a cat is a nice philosophical poser, and has been since the time of Plato. Why we should all agree on calling the animal a cat is equally interesting, yet it throws up the problem that lies at the heart of all modern philosophy: how much do our perceptions of things depend on our cognitive ability, and how much on our linguistic resources? Where, and how, do these two questions meet? Having decided against a systematic treatment of his subject, Umberto Eco undertakes a series of idiosyncratic and typically brilliant explorations, starting from the perceived data of common sense, from which flow an abundance of 'stories' or fables, often with animals as protagonists, to expound a clear critique of Kant, Heidegger and Peirce. And, as a beast designed specifically to throw spanners in the works of cognitive theory, the duckbilled platypus naturally takes centre stage.

Kant And The Platypus

Random House]

Embracing the web of multi-culturalism that has become a fact of contemporary life from new york to new delhi, eco argues that we are more connected to people of other traditions and customs than ever before, making tolerance the ultimate value in todays world what good, he asks in a talk delivered during the gulf war, does war do in a world where the flow of goods, services, and information is unstoppable, and the enemy is always behind the lines? what makes news today, who decides how it will be presented and how does the way it is disseminated contribute to the widespread disillusionment with politics in general? in one of the most personal of the essays, eco recalls experiencing liberation from fascism in italy as a boy, and examines the various historical forms of fascism, always with an eye toward such ugly manifestations today and finally, in an intensely personal open letter to an italian cardinal, eco reflects on a question underlying all the reflections in the book - what does it mean to be moral or ethical when one doesnt believe in god? as thoughtful and subtle as they are pragmatic and relevant, these essays present one of the worlds most important thinkers at the height of his critical powers

Five Moral Pieces

Essays & Correspondence

Vintage Books

Three book editors, jaded by reading far too many crackpot manuscripts on the mystic and the occult, are inspired by an extraordinary conspiracy story told to them by a strange colonel to have some fun. They start feeding random bits of information into a powerful computer capable of inventing connections between the entries, thinking they are creating nothing more than an amusing game, but then their game starts to take over, the deaths start mounting, and they are forced into a frantic search for the truth.

Foucault's Pendulum

Contemporary

Vintage/Ebury (a Division of R

An extraordinary epic, brilliantly-imagined, new novel from a world-class writer and author of the name of the rose discover the middle ages with baudolino - a wondrous, dazzling, beguiling tale of history, myth and invention it is 1204, and constantinople is being sacked and burned by the knights of the fourth crusade amid the carnage and confusion baudolino saves a byzantine historian and high court official from certain death at the hands of the crusading warriors, and proceeds to tell his own fantastical story

Baudolino

Genre Fiction

Hilarious and provocative, fanciful and wise, offering answers to questions we never thought to ask and questions to the answers we always thought we knew, these essays range over subjects marginally useful and fabulously unexpected.

How to Travel With a Salmon : And Other Essays

The Name of the Rose

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success, "The Name of the Rose" is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by UMBERTO ECO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by UMBERTO ECO

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by UMBERTO ECO. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Apocalypse Postponed

The Search for the Perfect Language

The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (Hutchinson university library)

The Middle Ages of James Joyce: The Aesthetics of Chaosmos

Kant And The Platypus

Five Moral Pieces

Foucault's Pendulum

Baudolino

How to Travel With a Salmon : And Other Essays

The Name of the Rose