The End Of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium - Softcover

Thompson, Damian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099289431 ISBN 13: 9780099289432

Publisher: Vintage, 1999

Synopsis

Damian Thompson highly evocative, brilliant and comprehensive account of apocalyptic belief was a phenomenal critical success upon hardback publication. It brings together the massacre at Waco, the Solar Temple suicides, the Japanese subway gas attack, UFOs, angelic visitors and other apparently unrelated phenomena and places them in the context of the dawning of a new world at the time of the millennium. This is the revised, updated edition in which Damian Thompson tackles subjects such as the millennium dome and the millennium bug; rejacketed by Vintage for the lead-up to the year 2, 000.

About this title

Review

The end of yet another millennium is fast approaching, and all kinds of squirrelly people are coming out of the woodwork. Members of Aum Shinrikyo set off poisoned gas in Tokyo subways while members of Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate bid farewell to this world via lethal pudding, headed for that great mother ship in the sky. Meanwhile, the whole world fearfully anticipates 2000--the year when computers everywhere will trigger mass confusion over the double zero and set us all back a century. Lest you think that our generation is alone in its end-of- the-millennium craziness, Damian Thompson has written a history of millenarianism through the ages, The End of Time.

Technically speaking, the millennium refers to Christ's Second Coming and his thousand-year reign on earth; however, long before Christianity, various people in various corners of the earth have predicted the end of the world--everyone from the ancient Mesopotamians and Persians right up through the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Thompson provides an engrossing survey of four millenarian movements, taking a more in-depth look at the end of the 20th century, a time in which fundamentalism and New Age theology are simultaneously on the rise as people scramble for meaning in these fast-changing times. What better way to prepare for the end of yet another millennium than by reading The End of Time? --Amazon.com

From the Back Cover

On the eve of the year 2000 the world is experiencing a disturbing resurgence of apocalyptic belief. From Surbiton to Seoul, millions of evangelical Christians are waiting for Armageddon. Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are prophesying the end of an era. New Agers are experiencing visions of 'earth changes' in which whole continents are swallowed up by the ocean. This fully updated edition of Damian Thompson' s highly acclaimed book ranges from Doomsday cults to the Millenium Dome, from the mysterious Terrors of the Year 1000 to the growing panic over the Y2K computer crisis.

If you only read one book about the millenium, this should be it.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099289431
• ISBN 13: 9780099289432
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416