Longing for the End

Jonestown, Waco and Heaven's Gate resonate deeply in contemporary America, while Munster, Masada or Mount Tabor were no less potent for their eras as long as 1900 years ago. All were movements that believed the endtime was close and their members had to act through violence or suicide to ensure that it happened. "Longing for the End" explores the long, often violent, history of millennialism as it has affected Western civilization. From the ancient Zoroastrians to the Concerned Christians of 1998, a belief in the imminent end of the present world and coming of the new age has motivated hundreds of sects and cults, some of which burned out in an orgy of violence, while others endured, as did Christianity itself, to become a permanent part of Western society. Millennialism has also been part of the motivation behind the Crusades, Columbus's voyages, Marxism and the Third Reich. In this work, Baumgartner shows why the year 2000 has so powerful a place in the Western imagination.