The Dove and the Dragon: A Cultural History of the Apocalypse

by Ed Simon

Overview

No Western religious concept has been as socially, culturally, economically, and politically significant as that of the apocalypse. Neither heaven and hell, nor sin and salvation, nor even God and the devil have merited the attention of billions of people in the manner that belief in the end of the world has. Apocalyptic thinking is riven by a fruitful—and at times dangerous—binary between the hopes for a coming millennium when all shall be perfected or of a fiery deluge when the earth shall be destroyed.

The Dove and the Dragon is the first comprehensive history of Western apocalypticism. Ed Simon introduces a new system for classifying movements concerned with the end of history, between hopeful, millennial "doves" and violent, apocalyptic "dragons." This framing connects a seemingly disparate phenomenon, from medieval millennialism to modern Marxism, Reformation apocalypticism to contemporary techno-utopianism. Expected groups are considered, but unexpected phenomena are interpreted through the lens of apocalypticism as well to argue that those that have often been classified as "secular" still take part in this ancient theological category.

This new way of interpreting history gives sense to the full scope of apocalypticism as a series of movements and as a genre, including not just religion and theology, but politics, philosophy, and pop culture as well. The Dove and the Dragon promises to be the standard introduction for years to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798889834618
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	08/12/2025
Pages:	285
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ed Simon is Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department of Carnegie Mellon University and a staff writer for LitHub, as well as the editor of Belt Magazine. He is also the author of several books, including The God Beat: What Journalism Says about Faith and Why It Matters (Broadleaf Books, 2021) as well as Binding the Ghost: Theology, Mystery, and the Transcendence of Literature (Fortress Press, 2022). He holds a PhD in English from Lehigh University.

Table of Contents

Introduction - The Eternal Prelude to Armageddon

Chapter One - In the Beginning was the End: Judaism and the Prophets

Chapter Two - Hell Followed with Him: Early Christianity and the Church Fathers

Chapter Three - The First Millennium Approaches: Islam and Christianity in the Early Middle Ages

Chapter Four - The Broken Seal: Mystical Millenarians of the Middle Ages

Chapter Five - Rebirthing the End: Renaissance Humanism and Reformation Apocalypticism

Chapter Six - The Whores of Babylon: Apocalypse in the Early Modern Period

Chapter Seven - Visions of the Last Judgement: Rationalizing the Apocalypse

Chapter Eight - A Terrible Swift Sword: Armageddon in the Nineteenth-Century

Chapter Nine - Ending All Over Again: Modernity, Secularism, and Apocalypse

Chapter Ten - Hoofbeats of the Horsemen: The Future and Apocalypse?

Epilogue - Monsters of the Anthropocene