Turning Back the Clock is a brilliant collection of essays by one of theleading intellectuals of our time. With his customary sharpness and wit, Eco explains the tragic stepsbackwards that have been taken since the end of the last millennium. After the Cold War, the 'Hot War' has made its comeback in Afghanistanand Iraq. Exhuming Kipling's 'Great Game', we have gone back to the clashbetween Islam and Christianity. The ghost of the Yellow Danger has been resurrected, thenineteenth-century anti-Darwin debate has been reopened, right-winggovernments predominate. It almost seems like history, tired of the big steps forward it has takenin the past two millennia, has gone into reverse. This book proposes not so much that we resume a forward march, but at thevery least that we cease marching backwards.