A collection of timely essays by the internationally acclaimed and bestselling essayist, philosopher, literary critic and author of The Name of the Rose and The Prague Cemetery. Inventing the Enemy covers a wide range of topics on which Umberto Eco has written and lectured over the last ten years, from the discussion of ideas that have inspired his earlier novels - exploring lost islands, mythical realms, and the medieval world in the process - to a disquisition on the theme that runs through his most recent novel, The Prague Cemetery, that every country needs an enemy, and if it doesn`t have one, must invent it. Eco`s lively new collection examines topics as diverse as St Thomas Aquinas`s notions about the soul of an unborn child, indignant reviews of James Joyce`s Ulysses by fascist journalists of the 1920s and 1930s, censorship, violence and Wikileaks. These are essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsessions by one of the world`s most esteemed scholars and critically acclaimed, bestselling novelists.