Always one for a challenge, Alidë Kohlhaas has posted a thorough and thoughtful review of Umberto Eco’s new collection of essays TURNING BACK THE CLOCK: Hot Wars And Media Populism on the Lancette Journal of the Arts website:

The question may arise, why read Eco’s essays about the affairs of state and the media in Italy? My response is, ‘Why not?’ There is a great deal to be learned from these essays addressed to his fellow citizens, yet he draws on the world to make his points… Every essay in this book deserves a detailed analysis, but that will lead to a book-length review. Suffice it to say that I found the essays stimulating, frustrating, exhilarating, and there were moments when I wished I had the ability to comment with such razor-sharp insight as Eco is able to do. There is no telling on which side of the political divide he stands. He demolishes the left as much as the right, and those who stand in the center, whenever they act in ways that are philosophically unacceptable. At the same time, this book informs certain perceptions one has formed on one’s own about Italian politics as they reach us here through our own media.

Click here for the full review