Our Dumb World Paperback – October 27, 2008

Our world never looked so dumbThe talented writers behind the `The Onion' peel away layers to reveal a collection of nations that just might make you cry.When is an atlas more than a collection of maps and dry data? When it is written and designed by the crazed minds behind The Onion, that's when. The Onion is the wildly funny and popular news satire Web, print and video efforts of a team of writers who are as intelligent and insightful as they are gut-busting funny. They definitely score again with "Our Dumb World", an atlas that carves up the Earth into easily digestible pieces of sheer madness.The book is very well designed and the tone is pitch perfect, giving it a feel of seriousness and credibility that one would expect in a real atlas. It all works to bring to light the hypocrisy, stupidity and cruelty that blanket so much of the modern world. Rarely is it so easy to laugh at war, poverty, famine and rampant ignorance.While most of the humor is low-brow and crude, virtually every page also includes some meaningful message about warped values and priorities. No one is spared, from the high and mighty nations to the struggling basket cases. All are given swift kicks to the groin in order to provide laughs and enlightenment for readers."Our Dumb World" is well stocked with photos, timelines, pie charts and other visual gimmickry that impresses people who don't like to read. I like the line graph that shows the frequency of line graphs used in the book. My favorite, however, is the color-coded "Bono Awareness Map". Each country is tinted in accordance with how much the lead singer of U2 cares about it.Mindless patriotic robots beware. Your programming may be unsettled by this book. Here's an excerpt from the description of the United States: "America is a place where even the poorest immigrant can, through hard work and dedication, achieve the American Dream for his employer."The writers of "Our Dumb World" do not shy away from calling it like they see it, no matter how hard hitting or unpopular their analysis may be. On Canada, for example, they offer this burning insight: "Living in the shadow of its southern neighbor, the nation of Canada will never be as great as the U.S. so long as it continues to burden itself with universal health care, refuses to drill for oil in federally protected wildlife reserves, and neglects its duty to blindly support unilateral invasions of Middle Eastern states."Please do not think that this book is entirely mean, negative, ethnocentric and condescending. For example, while it calls Panama a "shortcut with its own national anthem" it does praise Cuba for perfecting communism by "creating a truly equal society where desperate poverty is distributed evenly among all citizens."The beautiful Bahamas, according to "Our Dumb World", is an "all-inclusive, full-service nation" made up of "hundreds of luxurious, foreign-owned islands fully staffed with indigenous pool boys, bartenders, and bellhops. Millions of visitors each year enjoy the nation's turquoise waters, endless sandy beaches and lavish resorts, all of which are strictly off-limits to the Bahamas citizens."China, though controversial for its human rights and environmental records, is hailed by the atlas as the world's largest mass-producer of Chinese, having manufactured more than 700 billion of them since 1892.This is not just rude joke after rude joke, however. Social awareness and compassion for humanity pops up from many pages. On Indonesia: "While it has struggled with poverty, Indonesia's close relationship with such world powers as Nike and the Gap has allowed citizens to provide a much higher standard of living for Western consumers tired of low-quality T-shirts."If political correctness is your thing you won't like this book. My advice is that anyone missing the humor gene should steer well clear of "Our Dumb World". Anyone who rates former U.S president George W. Bush as a great leader, for example, might want to pass as well. You either won't get the jokes or smoke will come out of your ears before you make it to page 15. I suggest you buy something by Ann Coulter instead. On second thought, however, the sort of people who wouldn't find any of this stuff funny are the very people who need it most. Maybe sometimes humor can reach where logic and reason can't.The section on Africa is crafted to perfection. The writers hit the perfect mix of satire, ridicule and social commentary. As one who has been to Africa, written about poverty and violence there for many years, I was not put off by the humor. In fact, given the attention span of today's public, it could probably do a better job of raising awareness about Africa's problems than a hundred op-ed columns in the New York Times ever could.This book is not delicate or respectful but it does entertain and inform. It just might even be able to improve some demented and negative worldviews. So, if you want a better world, one with a lot more compassion and common sense, then buy a copy of "Our Dumb World" today and give it to a jerk!--Guy P. Harrison, author of:Race and Reality: What Everyone Should Know About Our Biological Diversityand50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

This is the funniest book I've ever read. I don't typically laugh out loud by myself, but with this book I did. The humor is very Onion-y, so you know what you're getting if you like reading the Onion. Don't expect to read it straight through... it's not set up in articles, but more like a Guinness World Record Book type thing. Each country or region has its own few pages, with a map and a few paragraphs, and some little factoids strewn around the page. It's a great coffee table book for anyone with irreverent humor (the best kind, of course). After having it only a few hours, we bought 2 more for friends and family.

Super funny, if a bit only-on-the-surface for some countries -- still, this is lighthearted equal-opportunity-to-be-mean fun a'la Polandball comics, and I keep it on my coffee table for guests to snicker at if they feel like learning a little bit about the world's countries.

This book is hilarious but it's also about as un-PC as it gets. If you're sensitive about that, it isn't for you. ODW is funny from cover to cover, and some of it is laugh-out-loud, in the manner of an insult comic's take on the world. The Onion cleverly and often outrageously exploits every national, ethnic, and cultural stereotype there is, both historic and present day. If you can get into that, don't miss this book, and don't miss a word of it including the tiny map notations. If insult comedy bothers you, and no corner of the globe escaped their merciless barbs, spend your money on something else.I've bought 3 more copies as gifts for family members. When I showed them mine, they so enjoyed leafing through they couldn't wait to borrow it and show it to others themselves. I doubted I'd get it back, though, so I got them their own. It's a terrific gift, as long as you're sure you won't be inadvertently stepping on tender toes.

I LOVE this book! This is not your ordinary world atlas. It's politically incorrect, very funny and may even be written by a Supercomputer. Before I read this book I never knew that the part of the United States that I lived in was just 'America's Pit Stop'. This book contains humorous jabs at every nation on the globe. It hits the stereo types you don't want to admit you may already have about other Countries, Cities or States.

I could not believe the detail. There are thousands of little doses of humor peppered throughout this book. It some of it outrageous? Oh, my, yes. Is some of it way over the top? Indeed. Does it play on biases and prejudices about different areas of the world? Certainly. But it's all in humor. Not one place on the globe is spared the Onion's humorous barbs. Hilarious!

Everything you would expect of something from the Onion. There is some rude humor in it but if you are familiar with the Onion it is not going to be a surprise. The book is hard on every country so don't get upset if your favorite is made fun of. This book is great because you can look at it almost every day and find something new to laugh about (or groan about). Well worth getting.

Back in 1999 the editors of US satirical weekly The Onion scored a massive hit with Our Dumb Century: a hilarious version of how a prejudiced, twisted little newspaper might have depicted America's relationship with history. Since then, although The Onion's annual collections have been often very funny, there has been nothing of equal brilliance.Until now.(Sort of) like with The Matrix, no one can tell you why The Onion is funny, mainly because they will choke with laughter as soon as they start reading it aloud. The "joke" here, I suppose, is that hiding within the covers of a seemingly objective atlas, with its dead-pan delivery, is a book that shamelessly revels in every national stereotype (literally) in the book. Sometimes the jokes are harmless, sometimes too tasteless to quote in a review ... but they're pretty much always on the money.Far from being dumb, this is a very clever book with a vast number of satirical objects; not just the countries under consideration but also the attitudes being voiced about them. It took eight years and a number of tries, but The Onion finally produced its funniest book yet.

I hated geography at school, almost as much as I hated history. If this book had been around then, things would have been very different.For those unfamiliar with The Onion, think Mad for older readers or perhaps a US equivalent of Private Eye and Viz. It is unrelentingly funny, but also incredibly educational. In many ways, it can be seen as a companion to Our Dumb Century, The Onion's 100 years of spoof newspaper articles (I'd have loved history, too, if that one had existed when I was at school). Witty, obscene (when required), daring and impeccably researched, no one gets away scot free (certainly not America, if that's a concern!)It's lavishly illustrated, in full colour and the ideal present for all those people who have 'seen a bit of the world' and keep going on about it. It's not the first time this has been done: in the eighties, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, having just finished Not the Nine O'Clock News, put their name to a 'World Alas', too. That was very funny in its time, but the world has changed unbelievably since then. This atlas (or should that also be 'alas'?) hits the spot.

If you are easily offended and hate to hurt others feelings, then don't buy this book.If, on the other hand, you are well adjusted and love to poke fun at others as well as your own kind, you are going to love The Onion's Our Dumb World.

Sarcastically accurate, the book reveals many top secrets we were not supposed to know, but alas, that's what we're supposed to be: dumb.

Dieses Buch ist urkomisch und bietet zu jedem Land der Erde hervorragend vorurteilsgetriebene Scherze. Von ständig wechselnden autoritären Regimes in Südamerika bis zum seit 1945 Völkermordfreien Deutschland ("Germany - Genocide-free since April 11, 1945") - hier bekommt jedes Land sein Fett weg. Wer die Artikel des Onion Networks kennt, kann sich vorstellen wie hintersinnig und lustig das Buch ist. Zu jedem Land gibt es eine Landkarte mit den wichtigsten Sehenswürdigkeiten ( Wodka-Pipeline in Russland z.B.), einige Informationen zu Land und Leuten und häufig ein paar Bilder mit bissigen Unterschriften.Ich selbst habe das Buch vor einiger Zeit geschenkt bekommen und es inzwischen auch verschenkt. Es kam immer gut an und unterhielt die Beschenkten und Gäste schon bei jeder Feier.Jedem, der der englischen Sprache mächtig ist, kann ich dieses geographisch-politische Werk nur ans Herz legen.