Apocalypses
  • Published: 8 June 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446476994
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

Apocalypses

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'A brilliantly entertaining and profound study of apocalypses throughout history, written by one of the world's most eminent historians. Hugely entertaining...bristling with insight... A brilliant work' - Literary Review

In these secular times, confessing to a belief in the apocalypse consigns a person to Christian fundamentalism or to cult status. But for centuries the Judaeo-Christian version of apocalypse - its Revelations-driven belief in the destruction of evil and the Second Coming of Christ - was accepted as the literal truth and ultimate destination of human existence.

The distinguished historian Eugen Weber redresses the historical and religious amnesia that has consigned the study of apocalyptic and millennial thought to the lunatic fringe. Elegantly written, as witty and entertaining as its profound, this is more a travel book of the apocalypse than a definitive academic treatment. And at its heart is a profound respect for the resilience of alternative rationalities, and for the luxuriant current growth of millenarianism in Africa, Asia and South America.
  • Published: 8 June 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446476994
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
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About the author

Eugene Weber

Eugen Weber served in the British Army during the Second World War and was educated at Cambridge and at the Paris Institut d'études politiques. Until his retirement he held the Joan Palevsky Chair of Modern European History at UCLA. Author of a dozen books, Weber also wrote and narrated a fifty-two part PBS series, The Western Tradition. He died in 2007, aged 82.

Praise for Apocalypses

An upbeat look at the end of the world...a fascinating and stylish book

Jonathan Sale, Daily Telegraph

Interesting and informative...a fascinating brief history of a powerful but often hidden thread in Western ways of thought

Economist

The aim of Apocalypses is to understand rather than condemn, and in this Weber succeeds brilliantly. A scholar who writes with a light touch, he has illuminated an important swathe of history which most respectable historians tend to neglect

John Gross, Mail on Sunday

Written with the erudition and lucidity for which Eugen Weber is famous...a stimulating book

Roger Scruton, The Times