In every culture, history is a story, and the end of that story is the end of the world. This work describes the surprising similarities among the various forms that the 'end of history' has taken around the world and throughout time. Further, it explores how the image of the end has affected actual historical events, from the rise of millenarian cults to the evolution of the idea of progress. Specific topics include racial mysticism, the origin of the idea of nuclear war, and the future of the apocalypse.
ISBN: 1-84045-029-0
Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 -- Story Power
Chapter 2 -- A Paradigm of Histories
PART I: Circles and Spirals
Chapter 3 -- Oswald Spengler Meets the Emperor of the Last Days
Chapter 4 -- Arnold Toynbee Explains It All
Chapter 5 -- The Racial Apocalypse of Count Arthur de Gobineau
PART II: The March of Time
Chapter 6 -- The Five Ages of the World
Chapter 7 -- The Living Bible
Chapter 8 -- Nuclear Strategy Considered as a Millenarian Cult
Chapter 9 -- The Coming Man
PART III: Foreseeing the End
Epilogue -- In Praise of the Apocalypse
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