Our Dumb Century
by the Onion editors
Three Rivers Press
Since its inception as a satirical campus weekly, the Onion has shone like a lighthouse of wit and satire from within the murky depths of the Upper Midwest. Long a cult favorite on the Web, the Onion’s original printed format has spread to numerous outposts in an ever-growing empire of newsprint.
In an aggressive move to market the Onion brand on the national level and rake in potentially lucrative royalties, the editors of the Onion have run the 20th century through a meat-grinder of aggressive satirical writing. The resulting book, Our Dumb Century, is a sarcastic, bristling, self-mocking parody of a great newspaper’s evolution from 1900 until the present. This is clearly ambitious. What’s amazing is that the level of humor stays consistent throughout the book; it’s hard to get through one of the many Onion front pages without at least guffawing in respect.
What may be most remarkable about Our Dumb Century is the grotesque level of historical detail woven into almost every feature within its 164 illustrated pages. From the dead-on turn-of-the-century style illustrations that mark the book’s opening section, to the "Reefer Madness" paranoia of the 1950s, all the way up to the vacant USA Todayism of modern journalism, the Onion finds the right tone for the times.
Our Dumb Century doesn’t lack bite, either; its contents often neatly highlight the racism, bigotry and pig-ignorance that have long been among the defining characteristics of the American people. Headlines such as "Should U.S. Set Limits on Indian Slaughter?" and "’Ku Klux Klan‘ Club Growing in Popularity" cap articles that vigorously peel away the scabs of our collective national tragedies, and make mirth of the exposed carnage.
"Our Dumb Century" is nothing short of a satirical masterwork, and the Onion editors are no doubt congratulating themselves for having wrought what may very well be the Excalibur of bathroom books. Fans of history and/or satire are making a grave, grave error if they don’t pick up a copy, and soon.
— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)
