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Summary: It will bring tears to your eyes
Review: The onion peels back the layers of stupity in our social history. Read it as a social satire, it will bring tears to your eyes
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Summary: Worth it, worth it, worth it...
Review: In his weekly column, T. Herman Zweibel often recalls his long and notorious career in journalism; despite these references to The Onion's enduring presence and askew perspective throughout our nation's history, I had never considered how the irreverent paper would have handled so many of the famous news stories to emerge from this century of the planet's most illustrious nation. The Onion's "Our Dumb Century" delivers in spades. Events both real (the demise of the Hindenberg) and fictional (the radioactive spider-bite and subsequent death by radiation poisoning of one Peter Parker during a science experiment) are presented with the same off-kilter, tongue-in-cheek delivery that makes thousands of in-the-know Onion fans howl at current events every Tuesday. The book is impressive stylistically as well; the editors apparently researched many of the print styles appropriate to the era of the news story being resurrected, an effect which contributes greatly to the myth of The Onion's rich legacy. Regrettably (though perhaps legally and ethically commendable), I refrained from making a photocopy of the galley copy I was fortunate enough to see, and so there is still one antsy, anxious month between this writing and Our Dumb Century's release date. Until then, I can only hope that I am not hit by a bus in the meantime, resulting in the kind of dour and dry news story I've--thanks to the Onion--lost the ability to tolerate. Worth every penny; I would've paid double for this book. *One last request for the
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Summary: It's funnier than War and Peace!
Review: While I have only seen the cover, I feel I can safely say, that this book will do for literature what Baywatch has done for lifeguarding. Not since the Declaration of Independence was coined by Thomas Jefferson has anything written on paper contributed so much to the American People
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Summary: The onion peels off nicely
Review: I've been visiting the onion website since the beginning of the century. The book is destined to be the greatest ever published. It's insights will leave everyone who reads it cultured, informed, and probably confused. Hail to the onion
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Summary: Finally, a book that teaches ya something
Review: Of the 50 or 60 self help books i buy a week, this is the first one that actually made a difference. An amazing 5 pages into this book I no longer had an urge to smoke dryer lint, and more importantly my armpit hair started to grow back(ive long suffered from pit paterned baldness). Sam I am. Taerg si koob siht. oops typing backwards again. This book brought me much closer to my lord Alah, and more importantly 100% of all proceeds of this book go to someone. Mom, Why cant I find a girlfriend? Does anyone know how to get to the mall from here
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Summary: Well done, Mr. Zweibel!
Review: The Onion has brought its vast resources together to produce a classy, well-written, even-handed profile of the last 100 years. Arguably the single most important historical resource ever to be published
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Summary: OMG is this funny
Review: When I first discovered The Onion two years ago, I literally woke up with sore abdominal muscles. Not from too many situps, from laughing out loud so hard at the most finely tuned news satire to come along in decades. "Our Dumb Century" features the Onion's classic satire newspapers for highlighted dates throughout the 20th century. Headlines include (October 29, 1919) "Teddy Roosevelt Allows Three Others to be Carved into Mountain," (November 21, 1943) "Loose Lips Sink Ship," and (January 21, 1993) "New President Feels Nation's Pain, Breasts." (The same date has "Tipper Gore Jerks Arrhythmically at Inagural Ball.") And that's just the headlines. The articles take the concepts and run. Not always even, not always hilarious, but there's something worth laughing out loud at on every page.
If you like to laugh, read The Onion.
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Summary: Some of the best satire in print
Review: If you love history and love to laugh, get this book today. It's a good idea to order it over Amazon, too, since in the bookstore you may find yourself leafing through it and laughing too hard to muster the composure to take it to the cash register. That was my experience, anyway.
The book works as a serviceable social and political history of the 20th century that manages to be to be laugh-out-loud-funny on every page. The headlines are hilarious, and the accompanying stories play the joke out to perfection, sprinkling in endless references and allusions. If it happened in the 20th century and mattered to anyone, the Onion has found a way to satirize it in these pages -- whether you thought it deserved it or not.
Our Dumb Century's combination of historical acumen and humorous insight is worthy of Mark Twain.
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Summary: And don't forget the graphic design
Review: Genius book, as others have noted. But the equally genius graphic design also deserves mention. If you look at the book carefully, you'll appreciate how the designers evolve the look of these "front pages," parodying newspaper design from the early part of the century through the USA-TODAYification process that took place in the '80s.
One example: The eagle featured in the title banner at the top of each page is suddenly dropped in the late "psychedelic" '60s and replaced with an onion with eagle wings. Suitably trippy, and anti-establishment.
Terrific.
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Summary: Cutting, Wickedly Funny Satire
Review: The Onion, with its weekly release of mock news-articles satirizing and lampooning the current status quo, is one of the most enjoyable humorous newspapers that currently exists. IT employs almost all types of humor, from subtletly to slapstick, from highbrow to lowbrow. However, nothing they write has even come close to the hilarity that Our Dumb Century brings to the reader. The book analyses the 20th Century from a not-quite-so objective standpoint, lampooning popular culture, spawning ludicrous conspiracy theories, ("Kennedy Slain by CIA, Mafia, Castro, LBJ, Teamsters, Freemasons)and reveling in the stupidity of our country and the world in the 20th Century. Every page brings something funny and satirical, from "World's Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-Berg - 1912" to "President Confronts Depression with 'Big Deal' Plan: 'Big deal, I'm Rich!' Roosevelt Says - 1933" to "Reagan May Have been Elected, Doesn't Recall - 1981." Although I am a history buff, anyone with an elemantary backround in American and World History will be highly amused by this brilliant piece of humor, although I found that as I learned more the book became funnier and funnier. Please, whether you appreciate the lighter side of history or your team just lost and you need something to cheer you up- read Our Dumb Century.
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