The Humor of Humor is much more than a pleasurable experience to read. By turns hilarious and illuminating, it is a revolutionary contribution, for beneath its endless fun and wit lays a new approach to comedy. The author compresses the vast panorama of the subject into a few basic building blocks of humor. As one turns these pages, the art, science, and history of popular comedy take shape before the readers' eyes in an entirely new way. This edition is graced by a new introduction by Arthur Burger, the dean of humor studies.

The reader will be fascinated by Esar's...