Awaiting Apocalypse [Paperback]

The current obsession with the 'end of the millennium' illustrates the enduring power of the idea of endings. This fascination cannot be simply dismissed as faulty logic, a form of madness, or a primitive survival of childish thinking. Opening a path of understanding between ancient conceptions of meaning and the sceptical predicates of modern science, Awaiting Apocalypse shows how ordinary and extraordinary endings are inherent in the narrative structure of human experience and the sedimentation of that experience as historical meaning.Acknowledgements Prologues to the End PART I: OBSESSION WITH TIME Thinking about the End Fatal Attractions The Borders of Apocalypse Smile: It's Party Time PART II: APOCALYPSE AND THE COLLAPSE OF TIME The Meaning of Apocalypse Historical Endings Ordinary Time, Ordinary Endings Endless History PART III: EMPIRES OF TIME Identifying with Time Signs of the Time PART IV: WAITING FOR THE END A Metaphysics for the Mean Time The Sense of Time Freedom: Nothing Left to Lose IndexPAUL CORCORAN is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. He is the author of Before Marx: Socialism and Communism in France, 1830-48.