A collection of timely essays by the internationally acclaimed and bestselling e
ssayist, philosopher, literary critic and author of The Name of the Rose and The
Prague Cemetery. Inventing the Enemy covers a wide range of topics on which Umb
erto Eco has written and lectured over the last ten years, from the discussion o
f ideas that have inspired his earlier novels - exploring lost islands, mythical
realms, and the medieval world in the process - to a disquisition on the theme
that runs through his most recent novel, The Prague Cemetery, that every country
needs an enemy, and if it doesn't have one, must invent it. Eco's lively new co
llection examines topics as diverse as St Thomas Aquinas's notions about the sou
l of an unborn child, indignant reviews of James Joyce's Ulysses by fascist jour
nalists of the 1920s and 1930s, censorship, violence and Wikileaks.
These are
essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsessions by one of the world's most es
teemed scholars and critically acclaimed, bestselling novelists.
