by PeterConrad (Author)
Peter Conrad's exhilarating book exposes the absurdity and occasional insanity of our godforsaken, demon-haunted contemporary culture. Conrad casts his brilliant beam upon subjects from the Queen to the Kardashians, via Banksy, Nando's, vaping, the vogue of the cronut, the mushroom-like rise of Dubai, the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, the growth of the Pacific garbage patch...
In Judge Judy, he shows us a matronly Roman goddess dispensing justice with a fly swatter. In the metamorphosis of Caitlyn Jenner from Olympic athlete and paterfamilias into idealized female form, he sees parallels to the deeds of the residents of Mount Olympus themselves. Finally, after surveying advances in biomedical engineering and artificial intelligence, he asks whether we might be on the brink of a post-human world.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: Reprint
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
Published: 03 Aug 2017
ISBN 10: 0500293546
ISBN 13: 9780500293546
Book Overview: Building upon his much-praised BBC Radio 4 series 21st Century Mythologies, Peter Conrad examines the enduring place of myth in contemporary culture and society