End of the World

Regardless of the title, this is hardly a book of hype and paranoia. Its a book mostly about Christianity and events that have been judged to herald in second coming of Christ. It starts with the sack of Rome, moves on to the inquisition, the black plague, the reformation, the earthquake of Lisbon, the Russian revolution and ends at Auschwitz.Rather than being a history of the events, it explores the social implications of these great tragedies (all the events are gruesome tragedies) and also talks how these tragedies have been used by artists, from Bach to Camus, in their works. Its about people that history has forgotten and the little events that led to the monumentous ones we remember.Sometime the book drags but overall, you come out with a great appreciation of what horrors the people went through and what a hypocritical society we still live in. Its a must read if you like history but don't like the traditional way in which history is presented.