- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Boxtree Ltd (23 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752217437
- ISBN-13: 978-0752217437
- Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 21.3 x 1.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 476,668 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
It's America's most popular newspaper, but there may be a few people out there who are sadly unaware of The Onion's mighty journalistic legacy. To combat this cultural illiteracy, Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and his writing staff have assembled this collection of great front pages from the last one hundred years. Here is just a sampling of the headlines: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Boasts: "No Man Can Stop Me"; AWESOME! Nation Wowed by Tremendous Hindenburg Explosion; Martin Luther King: "I Had a Really Weird Dream Last Night"; Clinton Denies Lewinsky Allegations: "We Did Not Have Sex, We Made Love." And those are just the headlines; the stories themselves are all masterpieces of the journalist's trade. Of course, readers with delicate sensibilities may find some of these accounts a bit too risqué, and perhaps even tasteless. (Among the potential offenders: Rosa Parks's decision to "screw this bus shit" and take a cab.) But if you're looking for an antidote to all the 20th-century hoopla promulgated by stuffed shirts like Peter Jennings and Harold Evans--not to mention the best history book since 1066 and All That--then Our Dumb Century is the one for you. --Ron Hogan
Product Description
This collection of front page news stories from "The Onion", a satirical magazine from America, includes such headlines as "World's Largest Metaphor hits Ice-Berg: Titanic Representation of man's Hubris Sinks in North Atlantic", and "Marijuana Smoking Linked to Getting High".
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
In a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony in our Republic's capital Saturday, President McKinley hailed the advent of a glorious new era in which coal reigns supreme. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
In a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony in our Republic's capital Saturday, President McKinley hailed the advent of a glorious new era in which coal reigns supreme. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I mean it - and I'm a hard man to please - even more so when it comes to Americans and what they often deem to be funny. My only caveat is a requirement for any reader to be capable of revelling in absurdly idiotic humour - think the absolute cream of Monty Python, Blackadder and Private Eye all rolled into one.
Dumb Century is a true piece of comic genius - incredible detail, a hit/miss gag ratio unmatched in anything I've read or seen recently. This is a book I will treasure for a very long time, dip into again and again, and dig out the second my future kids start struggling to maintain their interest in A-Level history. Brilliant.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Satire is used to perfection in this book, a ficticious recounting of the headlines of the 20th Century. As the editor of this newspaper calls it, this is "funny fake news."
The great thing about this book is that the stories are often related with the utter indifference one suspects reporters must develop after years on the job, packaged for the short attention span the public often has. These articles take the folly and "real" stories behind the stories, the ones that were never talked about in their day, and prints them as front page and headline news. Try, for example: "Eleanor Roosevelt, Nation Hails our First Lesbian President." Or regarding Pearl Harbor, "Dastardly Japs Bomb Colonially Occupied US Non-State." Or how about terming Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio's magical appeal as, "Nation Captived by Fairytale Wedding of Sullen Loner, Depressed Pill-Popper." Or the optimistic, "Drugs Win Drug War" alongside a picture of a bong-smoking man in tie-dye approaching the presidential podium. Page after page of "reprinted" front pages (a joke in itself, because there certainly was no Onion in 1904) makes this a great read which literally brought tears to my eyes.
Life ain't always pretty, but with the Onion it is always funny.
Andrew Parodi
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
I have always been a little disappointed with the weekly editions of the Onion. The few comedic gems are tarnished by the more mundane body of material. Of course I have to admit that it is an immense task to publish a weekly full newspaper parody that keeps up with current events as well as the Onion does. So it is understandable that not every article reverberates with the hilarity of "Jesus converts to Islam". This book gives the writers of the Onion the opportunity to concentrate the key events of each year of the past century into one or two pages of material. The result is that all of the writers' talents shine through. The headlines and stories give an educated, irreverent, sometimes a tad offensive, and sometimes remarkably insightful twist to the most important events of the American twentieth century. The book is not perfect. I felt it faltered slightly from the mid 80s to the present (there could be a correlation between this sentiment and the fact that the period from the mid 80s to the present is the only period which I have personally experienced). Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book which I rate right up there with such classics as "Bored of the Rings".
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Very amusing book, but when it says 'Miniature Edition' it means it.
I bought this book as a present for my dad as I'd read all the reviews and I think The Onion's fantastic. Read more
Published on 24 July 2009 by Dave Mihailovic
Tu Superbus Es
Move over "The (Deeper) Meaning of Liff," there's a new contender in town for the title of Best Value Humorous Book Ever Written. Read more
Published on 20 May 2001
We're doomed. But at least it's funny
Absolutely brilliant; sometimes the humour cuts a little dangerous (mostly involving the Jews; stories there are on dodgy ground). Read more
Published on 6 Feb 2001
NEW ONION BOOK: PUBLISHERS, BOOKSTORES, AUTHORS HAPPY
I shall never see the Moon Landing in the same light again.
This is one funny book. (It could hardly be two funny books - unless you use a hacksaw)
Buy it. Laugh.
Published on 7 Jan 2001 by husey@hisoffice.com
Very funny book.
Genuinely one of the funniest books I've read. Intelligent satire but also some good old puerile, infantile stuff, which is laugh-out-loud funny. Read more
Published on 6 Jun 2000
I started laughing the moment I opened the book.
Wonderfully irreverent, and a wickedly incisive view of history. Buy it for all your friends.
Published on 14 April 2000 by Garth Tucker
Surprising evidence that Americans have a sense of humour
Amazing. The only consolation of living in rapidly-declining Britain was that we thought we were the only people with a sense of irony. That doesn't stand up any more. Read more
Published on 24 Mar 2000
The ONLY source of intelligent humour I can find
Finally, humour has reached a new level with "Our Dumb Century".
WAR ENDS AS ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND IS FOUND ALIVE - "How fares Europe" asks presumed dead... Read more
Published on 14 Feb 2000 by funnyman@hotmail.com
Not baaad
I was mildly amused by some of the stories here. Not at all bad though - highly recommended but not quite on an Electric Rat scale.
Published on 10 Jan 2000
Indeed the funniest book ever written
I can confirm what it says on the back, that this is indeed the funniest book ever written.
I bought three copies.
Published on 4 Jan 2000
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
