Foucault’s Pendulum

Name: Foucault’s Pendulum
Rating: 4 (2068 reviews)

by Umberto Eco

First published 1988

Amazon

4.0(2,068)

Milan and Paris in the late twentieth century. Three editors working with manuscripts about occultism, secret societies and the Knights Templar amuse themselves by using a computer to combine disconnected claims into an elaborate hidden history. Their invented Plan links Templars, Rosicrucians, cabalists and modern conspiracies through apparently meaningful patterns.

The game becomes dangerous when occult believers treat the Plan as recovered truth rather than satire. As the editors’ private invention attracts people willing to threaten and kill for its supposed secrets, the novel examines how research, coincidence and interpretive confidence can manufacture a conspiracy more powerful than the evidence used to create it.