Heaven on Earth The Varieties of the Millennial Experience

by Landes, Richard

• ISBN13: 9780199753598
• ISBN10: 0199753598
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Millennialists through the ages have looked forward to the apocalyptic moment that will radically transform society into heaven on earth. They have delivered withering critiques of their own civilizations and promised both the impending annihilation to the forces of evil and the advent of a perfect society. And all their promises have invariably failed. We tend, therefore, to dismiss these prophets of doom and salvation as crackpots and madmen, and not surprisingly historians of our secular era have tended to underestimate their impact on our modern world. Now, Richard Landes offers a lucid and ground-breaking analysis of this widely misunderstood phenomenon. This long-awaited study shows that many events typically regarded as secular--including the French Revolution, Marxism, Bolshevism, Nazism--not only contain key millennialist elements, but follow the apocalyptic curve of enthusiastic launch, disappointment and re-entry into "normal time." Indeed, as Landes examines the explicit millennialism behind such recent events as the emergence of Global Jihad since 1979, he challenges the common notion that modern history is largely motivated by secular interests. By focusing on ten widely different case studies, none of which come from Judaism or Christianity, he shows that millennialism is not only a cultural universal, but also an extremely adaptive social phenomenon that persists across the modern and post-modern divides. At the same time, he also offers valuable insight into the social and psychological factors that drive such beliefs. Ranging from ancient Egypt to modern-day UFO cults and global Jihad, Heaven on Earth both delivers an eye-opening revisionist argument for the significance of millennialism throughout history and alerts the reader to the alarming spread of these ideologies in our world today.

Author Biography

Richard Landes is Associate Professor of History and directed the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. He is the author of several books, and editor of The Apocalyptic Year 1000 and the Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Is Introduction: Roosters, Owls, Bats
The Varieties of the Millennial Experience	p. 3
Roosters and Owls: On the Dynamics of the Apocalyptic Curve	p. 37
Bats and Turkeys: Historians and Recovering the Millennial Past	p. 62
Tribal Millennialism
Suicidal Millennialism: Xhosa Cattle-Slaying (1856-1857 CE)	p. 91
Commodity Millennialism: Papuan Cargo Cults (Twentieth Century)	p. 123
Agrarian Millennialism
Imperial Millennialism: The Monotheist Pharaoh Akhenaten (1360-1347 BCE)	p. 149
Bipolar Millennialism: Taiping (The Great Peace, 1850-1864)	p. 185
Modern (Secular) Millennialism
Demotic Millennialism: Civil Polities and the Dismantling of the Prime Divider	p. 215
Democratic Millennialism: French Revolution (1789-1815 CE)	p. 250
Egalitarian Millennialism: Marx the Rooster and Marxism (Nineteenth Century CE)	p. 288
Totalitarian Millennialism: The Bolshevik Apocalypse (1917-1935 CE)	p. 318
Genocidal Millennialism: Nazi Paranoia	p. 353
Postmodern Millennialism
Narcissistic Millennialism: UFO Cults (1946-2012? CE)	p. 391
Enraged Millennialism: Global Jihad (1400-1500 AH/1979-2076 CE)	p. 421
Conclusion: Assessing Apocalyptic Threats in the New Millennium	p. 467
Bibliography	p. 477
Name Index	p. 479
Subject Index	p. 489
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