Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience

520 Pages·2011·2.89 MB·English

by  Richard Landes

■
Heaven on Earth
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Heaven on Earth
The Varieties of the Millennial
Experience
Richard Landes
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Landes, Richard Allen.
Heaven on earth: the varieties of the millennial experience / Richard Landes.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-975359-8 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Millennialism—
History. I. Title.
BL503.2.L36 2011
202’.3—dc22 2010039766
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
■ To my mother who taught me how to read,
my father who taught me how to think, and
my daughters who taught me how to explain
myself.
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The stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone.
—Psalms 118:22
If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise.
—William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
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contents
Preface xi
part i: ■ Introduction: Roosters, Owls, Bats
1. The Varieties of the Millennial Experience 3
2. Roosters and Owls: On the Dynamics of the Apocalyptic
Curve 37
3. Bats and Turkeys: Historians and Recovering
the Millennial Past 62
part ii: ■ Tribal Millennialism
4. Suicidal Millennialism: Xhosa Cattle-Slaying
(1856–1857 c e ) 91
5. Commodity Millennialism: Papuan
Cargo Cults (Twentieth Century) 123
part iii: ■ Agrarian Millennialism
6. Imperial Millennialism: The Monotheist Pharaoh
Akhenaten (1360–1347 b ce ) 149
7. Bipolar Millennialism: Taiping (The Great Peace, 1850–1864) 185
part iv: ■ Modern (Secular) Millennialism
8. Demotic Millennialism: Civil Polities and the
Dismantling of the Prime Divider 215
9. Democratic Millennialism: French Revolution
(1789–1815 c e ) 250
10. Egalitarian Millennialism: Marx the Rooster and Marxism
(Nineteenth Century ce ) 288
11. Totalitarian Millennialism: The Bolshevik
Apocalypse (1917–1935 ce ) 318
12. Genocidal Millennialism: Nazi Paranoia 353