Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source

by Scott Dikkers

Book Overview

The Onion has quickly become the world's most popular humor publication, misinforming half a million readers a week with one-of-a-kind social satire both in print (on newsstands nationwide) and online... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609804618
• ISBN13: 9780609804612
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.1" x 0.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Perefect Gift for Intelligent Friends of Any Political POV!

God bless the Onion! Nothing and no one is sacred or left unscathed. I have given this to firends who are communists, democrats, republicans, evangelicals, etc. Anyone with a sense of humor and some knowledge of history will love this!

Excellent Silliness

The more you know and pay attention to the news the funnier this book will be to you. It not only skewers the news makers and their pomposity, but more importantly it shoots barbs at the news reporters who deserve it equally as much. I like to read a couple of the articles at a time so that I can savor them. Highly recommended.

The funniest book I have ever read

Good satire/comedy is a difficult task. It is not enough to just have a good idea or opening line, and then let that try to carry the day. Our Dumb Century succeeds where many have failed: the satires are hilarious from beginning to end. Great satirists know how to work with a kernel of truth and give it hilarious angles and take it to absurd places. The authors know their history and have a knack for latching onto some of the mainstream values and prejudices of each era, exaggerating them, and incorporating them in the headlines and stories. For example, a typical 50's headline reads "Eisenhower Vows to Address Growing Problem of Overdue Library Books," or the small print lead from the 1907 satire, "Foreign child labor a 'great threat' to American child labor, say captains of industry." There are no sacred cows here. All political viewpoints are skewered. Check out the Russian revolution headline: "Pretentious, Goateed Coffeehouse Types Seize Power In Russia." How many humor books have left you laughing until tears roll down your face? This is that rare book!

Funny beyond belief

_Our Dumb Century_ had me rolling-on-the-floor, gasping-for-air, ecstatic with laughter. This is the funniest book I've read for years.The headlines are clever, clever, clever. What separates this great humour book from a lesser one is that the faux news stories themselves--the text under the headlines--is just as funny as the initial joke. These people are trenchant comics and masters of deadpan parody.Buy this book if you want to remember history with verve and humour. _ODC_ ranks with _Dave Barry Slept Here_ as one of the funniest bits of American history (so to speak) ever produced.

Excellent satire of our past century

By far one of the most ingenious books to be published in recent times, Our Dumb Century successfully weaves the incredulous course of events of our twentieth century with a dry, subtle, sarcastic, daring, provocative, and profound sense of journalistic humor found in none other than The Onion. The result is absolutely hilarious to say the least.No important event is immune from the harsh, spirited bite of The Onion's ridicule--the invention of the airplane inspires an expedition to the sacred kingdom of Heaven, the discovery of a yeasty morsel makes front page news during the Great Depression, and Richard Nixon's attempts to annul the Watergate scandal go dreadfully awry.True with any newsstand edition of The Onion, Our Dumb Century contains, without a doubt, some tasteless and profane articles as well. Much of it is in the context of times past, and however offensive it may be, the satirical nature of the writing makes for some interesting consideration of how we perceive past events, past leaders, and how we as a people learned (or didn't learn) from those experiences. The authentic look of Our Dumb Century is the icing on the cake. In showing others the book, it took some explanation for them to understand that the majority of the pages were not published at the time. The layout, use of illustrations, headline fonts, and vocabulary encourage a strong sense of nostalgia while one is already glassy eyed from uncontrollable, prolonged laughter.I wish I could give this book more than a mere five-star rating.