INVENTING THE ENEMY covers a wide range of topics on which Umberto Eco has written and lectured over the last ten years, from a disquisition on the theme that runs through his recent novel, The Prague Cemetery - every country needs an enemy, and if it doesn't have one, must invent it; to the discussion of ideas that have inspired his earlier novels (and in the process he takes us on an exploration of lost islands, mythical realms, and medieval world); from indignant reviews of James Joyce's Ulysses by fascist journalists of the 1920s and 1930s, to an examination of St. Thomas Aquinas's notions about the soul of an unborn child, to censorship and violence to Wikileaks. These are essays full of passion, curiosity, and obsessions by one of the world's most esteemed scholars and critically acclaimed, best-selling novelists.