Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience PDF
Preview Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience
■ Heaven on Earth This page intentionally left blank Heaven on Earth The Varieties of the Millennial Experience Richard Landes 1 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2011 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. 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. This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank ■ 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
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