'On Beauty' is neither a history of art, nor a history of aesthetics but Umberto Eco draws on the histories of both these disciplines to define the ideas of beauty that have informed sensibilities from the classical world to modern times.

Italian literary theorist and novelist Umberto Eco includes nine essays in this title concerning: the general significance of literature; major authors of the Western canon; the poetic qualities of Dante's "Paradiso"; the style of the "Communist Manifesto"; Joyce's views on language; and more.

Nineteenth-century Europe, from Turin to Prague to Paris, abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Conspiracies rule history. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian priests are strangled with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate black masses by night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat.

But what if, behind all of these conspiracies both real and imagined, lay just one man? What if that evil genius created the most infamous document of all?

A collection of essays by one of the intellectuals which explains the steps backwards that have been taken since the end of the last millennium. After the Cold War, the 'Hot War' has made its comeback in Afghanistan and Iraq. It proposes not so much that we resume a forward march, but at the very least that we cease marching backwards.

Covers various topics on which the author has written and lectured over the years, from the discussion of ideas that have inspired his novels - exploring lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world in the process - to a disquisition on the theme that runs through his novel, "The Prague Cemetery", that every country needs an enemy.

Yambo struggles through the frames to find at last the face of the girl he loves.

Umberto Eco was an international cultural superstar. A celebrated essayist as well as novelist, in this, his last collection, he explores many aspects of the modern world with irrepressible curiosity and wisdom.

A crisis in ideological values, a crisis in politics, unbridled individualism - the familiar backdrop to our lives: a 'liquid society' where it's not easy to find a polestar, though stars and starlets are not lacking.

In these pieces, written by Eco as articles for his regular column in l'Espresso magazine, he brings his dazzling erudition and keen sense of the everyday to bear on topics such as popular culture and politics, being seen, conspiracies, the old and the young, mobile phones, mass media, racism, good manners and the crisis in ideological values. It is a final gift to his readers - astute, witty and illuminating.
Lire la suite Fermer

It is almost impossible to get away from discussions of whether the 'book' can survive the digital revolution. This title discusses the topics ranging from what can be defined as the first book to what happens to knowledge that infinite amounts of information are available at the click of a mouse.