Eugen Weber - APOCALYPSES, review

Apocalypses
Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages

That is the name of this book which I bought some time ago but never really got the time to it. This book was my weekend book so to speak.

"Apocalyptic visions and prophecies from Zarathustra to yesterday form the luxuriant panorama in Eugen Weber's profound and elegant book. Beginning with the ancients of the West and the Orient and, especially, with those from whom we received our religions, the Jews and earliest Christians, Weber finds that an absolute belief in the end of time, when good would do final battle with evil, was omnipresent. Within centuries, apocalyptic beliefs inspired Crusades, scientific discoveries, works of art, voyages such as those of Columbus, rebellions and reforms. In the new world, American abolitionists, who were so critical to the movement to end slavery, believed in a final reckoning. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries' apocalyptic movements veered toward a lunatic fringe, and Weber rescues them from obloquy. From this more than two millennia history, he redresses the historical and religious amnesia that has consigned the study of apocalypses and millennial thought to the ash heap of thought and belief "(Havard Universtiy Press, 2000).

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Personally, I am a pretty huge fan of history and civilisation. I have always been curious regarding the fact that most religions and beliefs tend to converge on one agreeing point - that the world is going to end some day.

I cannot help but to ponder how did humans of the older times incepted such an idea. A quick search on the internet and I found this book, and immediately bought it since there weren't many books that talk about this subject, which is generally deemed as sensitive.

All in all, this is one book you cannot read on its own because there is a huge list of reference and historical jargons that would require you to search out every couple of pages. It is a factual book, after all.

My take:

In his tendentious attempt to unlock the hidden meaning of the Apocalypse and millennnial thought, Weber takes his place in a long interpretative tradition. His profound and witty book embraces the entire panorama of the apocalyptic visions and prophecies from Zarathustra to the twentieth century and demonstrates clearly that belief in the approaching end of time (fin de siècle) after a final battle between good and evil was present in Western civilization even before the birth of Christ.