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How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions
 
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How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions (Hardcover)

by Francis Wheen (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover
  • Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd; First Edition edition (2 Feb 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0007140967
  • ISBN-13: 978-0007140961
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 225,201 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Ferdinand Mount, Sunday Times

'Hugely enjoyable... delightful reading.'


Tim Adams, Observer

'Wheen has a Swiftian relish for exposing the cant that attends the 'new rationality''
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Customer Reviews

55 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (55 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A small voice of reason, 17 Mar 2004
By Timothy De Ferrars (France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
From the first page this book promises a great deal: Francis Wheen sets out to show how society, both Western and Islamic, has determinedly squandered the benefits of the Enlightenment and has developed an astonishing hostility towards contemporary science and rational thought.

Wheen paints a picture that is both amusing and chilling: our citizens and leaders are in the thrall of hocus and spin; educated people consume with gusto the diet of drivel served up in the media; an entire nation loses its grip after the death of a Sloaney princess; and post-modernists conjure with words to question the reality of the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide.

This would have been a better book if Wheen had built on its early momentum and resisted the lure of diatribe, but there is such a surfeit of material to support his thesis, and so much nonsense routinely peddled by famous people who should have known better, that he seems unable to stop. The result is erudite and funny, but in the end this is a string of good journalism, rather than the serious manifesto that it might have been.

I recommend this book, and I hope that Wheen will soon produce another edition that not only updates us on the progress of this human ship of fools (which seems daily to surpass itself in its vainglorious stupidity) but also lingers more on the questions why, and what needs to be done.

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35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent thought-provoking book, 25 Feb 2004
Francis Wheen covers a lot of ground in this book. If there is a criticism, it is that his analysis is not as in-depth as it could be. But it would have been a different, and excessively weighty, book if it had been.

Mr Wheen could have gone for the easier option of going after the obvious targets of mumbo-jumbo such as complementary medicine and new ageism. These certainly get a look-in, but are far from the whole story. Mr Wheen has more interesting targets in mind including post-modernism and a variety of topics beloved of political left and right including the free market, globalisation and the Third Way. By straying into this territory, Mr Wheen guarantees that few readers will agree with everything he has to say; but as the whole book is about challenging the accepted wisdom of the day, this is perhaps no bad thing.

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51 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars about time, 18 Feb 2004
To criticise Wheen's book for straying from a targetted attack on mumbo jumbo is to miss the point. Wheen's problem is with irrational thought in all its guises and on that he is spot on. The great blubfest of diana and the banality of self-help books are the easy targets, but media friendly empty phrases such as "the third way" etc are equally deserving. Sure he gets carried away. He has a 2 page diatribe against Professor John Gray which amounts to not much more than: "he is wrong because he keeps changing his mind" (Gray's argument isn't against rationalism, it is against the unthinking humanistic belief in progress), but Wheen can be forgiven the occasional vitriol. I'm sure he wouldn't want you to accept all his conclusions verbatim. After all, that's what he is telling you. Think for yourself. Don't follow the herd. A simple epiphet, worthy of a self-book perhaps...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Almost believed it, for a moment
Wheen spends the better part of the book attacking some standard targets like post-modern 'philosophy' and homeopathy. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Andrew Fletcher

5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I'd had This to read before I went to university! Brilliant!
Francis Wheen. Although I did'nt recognise the author, I loved the title and ordered this book. I was thrilled with this book. It is really funny, and often eye opening. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Mr. V. De-Luca

5.0 out of 5 stars Common Sense Rules?
We really do know that much stuff, that is presented to us by politicos, media necromancers, is absolute nonsense. Read more
Published 3 months ago by RonMac

5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable way to fear for humanity's future
I really liked this book - nicely written, interesting subject, and engaging style. Only problem is it needing to be written at all. Read more
Published 3 months ago by wintermute

5.0 out of 5 stars Plain speaking and clear thinking
With How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World journalist Francis Wheen demonstrates that he can capture the comedy and common-sense of his columns in book-length form. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. S. Bailey

2.0 out of 5 stars Self-satisfied rant masquerades as the enlightened voice of reason
Francis Wheen is that curiously uncomfortable sort of liberal leftie: the sort who, possibly because it's part of the party line, agrees we are best served by a tolerant and... Read more
Published 17 months ago by O. Buxton

4.0 out of 5 stars Had to be said
There is a lot in that book. Some pruning of detail would have made it easier to read; on the other hand, it is all about the English and American political and business world,... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Zikmu

5.0 out of 5 stars Now I understand...
Now I understand why I could never get the Post Modernism course I did as part of my degree 10 years ago! Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. N. T. Baxter

3.0 out of 5 stars A little too flippant
This book is undoubtedly a good read. It is generally witty, irreverent, and Wheen's voice is both down-to-earth and yet learned. Read more
Published 18 months ago by James Duckworth

1.0 out of 5 stars keep turning left at the shibboleths
In "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World", Francis Wheen certainly lives up to the Euston Manifesto's commitment to return to Enlightenment values.

And yet... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Frugal Dougal

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