Willis - Armageddon Now: the End of the World A to Z

Cosmos, Fate of

Index

S tarting in 542 CE, bubonic plague swept across Europe, stretching as far as the British Isles. The death rate reached proportions similar to what a nuclear holocaust might have produced. Whole cities were abandoned and simply disappeared. Anarchy ruled. Uneducated peasants, caught in a religious trough between the old way we now call Druidism and the new faith of Roman Christianity, sought relief in one or the other. Meanwhile, scholars began to predict, and perhaps even welcome, the end of the world. A groundswell of religious eschatological hope carried the yearning for a better tomorrow as payment for the suffering of today.

On October 5, 1813, at the battle of the Thames in Ontario, the great Shawnee war leader Tecumseh was killed while protecting a British retreat from American forces during the War of 1812. His body was never located, and rumors persisted that he not only had prophesied this very event but also had vowed to rise from death to lead his people in a victorious return to an almost mythical golden age before the coming of the whites.

In July of 1945, a mushroom-shaped cloud towered over Alamogordo, New Mexico, marking the beginning of the nuclear age. Never before had the human race unleashed such powera power that owes its inception to the forces of war and destruction.

Beginning in 1957, British scientists began measuring the earths protective ozone layer over Antarctica. By 1984 it became apparent that something was wrong. A large seasonal hole had appeared. Arguments swirled around possible causes. Some insisted that the breach was a naturally occurring phenomenon. Others accumulated evidence suggesting it might foreshadow a human-induced ecological disaster.

Over the course of a few brilliant summer nights in 1994, scientists watched with awe as the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and slammed into the planet Jupiter. Pictures that flashed around the world showing the July 1622 event were both spectacular and unnerving. In cosmic terms, Jupiter isnt that far away. What if Earth had been the target?

Peering into the void, Armageddon Now: The End of the World A to Z crosses the religious and secular divide to examine the history of apocalyptic beliefs. This encyclopedic, multicultural overview covers doomsday theories, predictions, omens, revelations, and speculations; prophets, proselytizers, physicists, theologians, presidents, and prime ministers; and historic events, biblical accounts, and contemporary phenomena related to a growing endtime undercurrent in the popular culture. From the Rapture to the Resurrection, Armageddon Now explores and explains end-of-the-world scenarios from scientific, secular, religious, and supernatural points of view.