Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages

This book is an introduction to Western European and American apocalypticism. It jumps around pretty freely, although it is roughly organized into time periods. What I'll say about this book is, if you've read a bit of history already, it will be enjoyable to you. But if you want a serious, careful and scholarly history of apocalypticism, this will disappoint you, as it did one reviewer. No phenomenon is explored in any depth, but the narrative moves quickly through a lot of fascinating history. I did appreciate the author's care with dates, since that made it easier to keep up with the narrative's jumping around. My field is religious studies, although not exactly what is covered here. Nevertheless, I learned enough from this book to begin doubting some "conventional wisdom" about apocalypticism: for instance, that around the year 1000 there was a wild outbreak of enthusiasm. On the contrary, most people didn't know what year it was. But I also learned that apocalypticism has gone on pretty much constantly in Western Christianity, often despite the official churches' attempts to control it. Depending on your situation, you of course will find something else in it. I also want to add that, as I read this book, I continually wondered why this fascinating material is rarely covered in more general histories of Western Christianity. Whatever the reason, I strongly recommend this book to students of Western Christian history. I don't think enough people are famliar with this part of Christian history. But let me recommend a couple other books for you to consider before you pick this up. One is Paul Boyer's "When Time Shall be no More," which looks at apocalypticism in America very closely; if you're more interested in this than in European history, that'll be a better book for you. This is a book that I very strongly recommend to anyone who wants to understand religion in America. Another is Norman Cohn's "Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come," which (also very briefly) covers the origins of apocalypticism in the ancient world. Very few people could read this book without learning something about Zoroastrianism, 2nd Temple Judaism, or early Christianity.

Apocalypses; Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages, by Eugen Weber, well, the title says it all. This book covers every apocalyptic movement since they first began, and does it in nearly chronological order. Weber writes with a great sense of humor, which keeps this book from being completely mind-numbing. Its not the subject that is monotonous, but the overwhelming number of movements covered. I had no idea just how ubiquitous apocalyptic movements are and have been. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has persisted for over two millennia of history, even proceeding Christ. I recommend this book as a good reference for anyone studying apocalyptic movements, but it might be a bit much for casual reading by the merely curious.

An amusing and often enlightening book about the many prophecies - from the ancient past to our days - announcing the end of times. After reading this book it will be impossible to listen to the "revelations" of the many charlatans opening - in good or bad faith - their mouth with certainty to find credulity. Too many times the end has been "tomorrow", but too often this has been forgotten.

Review by Marianne Luban:When the Year 1000 was drawing near, people took it as an omen when Halley's Comet streaked across the heavens. Did this portend Doomsday or the advent of the Messiah? Was Man marching inexorably into the dusk or the dawn? Another thousand years later, we still don't positively know the answer to that question.The eminent historian, Eugen Weber, delivers his latest work, "Apocalypses", just in time to ponder our status on the brink of the new millennium and to give us insight into the hopes and fears of previous generations who found themselves hesitating before the looming gateway of a new era, weighing prophecies or confronted with phenomena consisting of "lamps of fire, angels, plagues, lightenings, thunderings, earthquakes, falling stars, fire, blood, hail, black sun and bloody moon". Weber writes: "When the world ends, it could be argued that all that ends is the world we know. The end of the world was really only the end of one world, not the end of time but of our time, not the annihilation of mankind but the end of a way of life and its replacement by another."While some contemplated finales, optimists dreamed and wrote of their hopes for an enlightened, repentant world and the regeneration of the human race: "They speak, earth, ocean, air; I hear them say 'Awake, repent, 'ere we dissolve away!" Yet others faced the unknown and dire forebodings armed with their wit. According to Weber, when Pope Benedict XIV was informed that the AntiChrist had come and was now three years old, the pontiff quipped, "Then I shall leave the problem to my successor."Eugen Weber must be the world's most fascinating conversationalist. One gets the impression, from reading "Apocalypses", that he has the entire saga of mankind stored in his marvel of a brain and can conjure up imagery, names, anecdotes and dates from it with the same fluency that some of us have when writing a chatty postcard home, describing an exciting day in a far-away locale. This is not to imply that, although Weber's style is urbane and witty, that "Apocalypses" is an easy read. It is not. Eugen Weber is never ponderous, but he makes it plain that he is first and foremost an historian and only secondarily a raconteur. Or perhaps thirdly, because Weber as philosopher is also very much a presence in the book. In fact, it is his own thoughts and comments that leave the most lingering impressions, reminding us that, while the deeds of Man are fleeting, it is his "death-defying thoughts", set down on paper, that are like the nacreous bits of shell that remain gleaming on the beach after the great tides of history have flooded and ebbed. For an academic, Eugen Weber is a very good writer, indeed. How different our "fin de siecle" seems from bygone chronological milestones. No longer moved by superstition and too jaded for optimism, we await the Millennium with a kind of dull signation. Our popular heroes are al