Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience
"Millennial expressions are found throughout history and are all around us. As Richard Landes demonstrates, some have extremely serious consequences. This is an erudite and informative cross-cultural study of the characteristics and dynamics of the varieties of millennial movements. There is much to be learned from this volume. Particularly welcome are the treatments of the secular millennial thought of Marx, and the Communist millennial movement in Russia and its influence on German Nazi millennialism. Richard Landes's insightful analysis of millennial phenomena constitutes a major contribution to the study of history and current events."--Catherine Wessinger, Rev. H. James Yamauchi, S.J. Professor of the History of Religions, Loyola University New Orleans"A craggy edifice of a book, monumental in scope, solid in scholarship, exploring many crevices of the past that will disturb and provoke every serious reader. . . This book is about the urgent temperament of those who expect the grandest events of history and the cosmos to occur soon and suddenly, whether as a religious dénouement with the coming of the Last Days or as a final social solution to solve the human predicament forever. Through a judicious collection of cases (including radical shifts of belief in Antiquity, cargo cults, and UFO religions), Landes demonstrates just how significant the millenarian factor is in history, and admonishes that this element has been paradoxically downplayed by historians (who often do not even want to understand it)." --Garry W. Trompf, Emeritus Professor in the History of Ideas and Adjunct Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney"A significant contribution...succeeds in both analyzing past catastrophic millennialist movements and predicting what the future may hold." -Library Journal"A large and impressive book that shows a vast learning." -Kenneth Minogue,Wall Street Journal"A superb new book." -Bret Stephens,Wall Street Journal"In Heaven on Earth, Richard Landes redresses our historiographical blind eye towards manifestly irrational social movements."--Daivis P. Goldman"Landes, an expert in medieval religion, presents arguments that will be controversial but are also largely convincing."--CHOICE"In his taxonomy of millennial ideas and movements over the course of history, Landes ascribes a very important role to Judaism. Heaven on Earth concludes with an urgent reminder of the danger posed by contemporary millennialism to the Jews."--Jewish Ideas Daily"The research is vast and deep, discovering meanings that one might have overlooked, had one not the impulse to upset convention.a work of enormous erudition and an imparter of knowledge and insight."--The Journal of Interdisciplinary History