Promotional Information

* Key title An entertaining, impassioned polemic on the retreat of reason in the late 20th century. An intellectual call to arms, Francis Wheen's Sunday Times bestseller is one of 2004's most talked about books. * Consumer advertising campaign ahead of paperback publication * A Sunday Times bestseller in hardback * Hardback has sold over 20,000 copies since its February 2004 publication * Received an astounding level of review and feature coverage on publication * Includes fascinating PS section with an exclusive interview with Francis Wheen and a new essay on the book

About the Author

Francis Wheen is a prolific freelance journalist and broadcaster, and has worked for the New Statesman, Independent, Mirror, Gay News, Today, New Socialist and Tatler. Having presented News-Stand on BBC Radio 4 for a number of years, Francis has appeared often on ITV’s What the Papers Say and more recently on BBC2’s Have I Got News For You. He is now the writer of Wheen’s World a regular column appearing in the Guardian – for which he was voted Columnist of the Year.

His previous books include The Sixties (1982), Television (1985), The Battle for London (1985), Tom Driberg (1990) which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award, and the bestselling How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World (2004). Karl Marx was published by Fourth Estate in 2000 and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the WH Smith Literary Award; the Samuel Johnson Prize; the Orwell Prize; the Silver Pen Award; and the Marsh Award.

Francis Wheen lives in Essex.

Reviews

'Wheen has a Swiftian relish for exposing the cant that attends the 'new rationality'...bullshit's enema number one.' Tim Adams, Observer 'Hugely enjoyable...delightful reading.' Ferdinand Mount, Sunday Times 'Lightly and often hilariously told as it is, this book does make it clear that respect for truth and reason is retreating and mumbo-jumbo has a new confidence everywhere...This amusing, intelligent and elegantly argued book is as good a demonstration of the values it defends as could be imagined.' Philip Hensher, Spectator 'This book is a manifesto for rescuing the greatest philosophical movement of the past millennium. You have a choice: either read it or, pre-emptively shred your brain in anticipation of the coming darkness.' Independent on Sunday 'This book is a manifesto for rescuing the greatest philosophical movement of the past millennium. You have a choice: either read it or, pre-emptively shred your brain in anticipation of the coming darkness.' Independent on Sunday 'Such an entertaining writer. Wheen is, one senses, a good man to go tiger-hunting with; it is no less fun to watch him shooting fish in a barrel.' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph 'Very funny...a brilliant satiric essay.' Will Cohu, Daily Telegraph 'If Wheen's book succeeds in starting to shift the balance between reason and sentimentality, between lavish prompts of the heart and the colder ones of the brain, between rigorous analysis and twaddled cloaked in obscurity, then I think the ghost of Jefferson will have every right, every reason, to be proud of him.' David McKie, Guardian 'This book is a well-informed polemic that most enjoyably challenges you to think. Wheen cuts a Jonathan Swift-like swathe through the morass of tosh, hogwash, and it could be added, bullshit that threatens to clog our minds.' Peter Lewis, Daily Mail Francis Wheen is the intelligent sceptic's intelligent sceptic, and How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered The World casts a cold eye on fads in government, management and health that have swept the Anglo-Saxon world in the past 20 years. The urge to believe is unstoppable in most of mankind. The abundance of stupidity in this book is enough to make you pine for Ian Paisley.' Jeremy Paxman, Mail on Sunday 'One of the best reads you are likely to read this winter, full of spark and fine writing. FT Francis Wheen also writes about Samuel Huntington in the Independent magazine's 'Heroes & Villains' column. His piece on 'mad theories making a come back and politicians helping' ran in the Sunday Times News Review.