Review by William Collins, Library Journal
Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience
Richard Allen Landes
Library Journal (07/01/2011)
In a significant contribution to the study of millennialist movements, Landes (history, Boston Univ.; “Encyclopedia of Millennialism and Millennial Movements”) studies the varieties of such movements across the centuries, movements that hope for a human society made perfect via an apocalypse creating heaven on earth. Landes points to apocalyptic arcs in secular history that have led us out of and back into normal time. Such movements can be dangerous when believers gain authority, whether in the founding of new religions, in secular revolutions, or in holocausts.
Landes contrasts “owls”—recorders of normal time in history—with the “roosters” of apocalyptic time who voice the hidden transcript. He carefully analyzes common elements in tribal, agrarian, modern secular, and postmodern apocalyptic movements and warns that today’s mutually reinforcing apocalyptic threats—”anthropogenic global warming” and “global jihad”—are subject to dichotomous left-right political posturing rather than sober reflection and action, amplifying the dangers of both.
VERDICT This work places Landes high among millennialism historians such as Michael Barkun (“A Culture of Conspiracy”) and Catherine Wessinger (“Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence”). Addressed to educated readers interested in religious, political, and social apocalyptic movements, it succeeds in both analyzing past catastrophic millennialist movements and predicting what the future may hold.
—William P. Collins, Library of Congress Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information.
ISBN: 0199753598 | EAN: 9780199753598
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA | Publication Date: August, 2011
