Millennium III, Century Xxi: A Retrospective On The Future

by Peter N Stearns

Overview

This book is intended as a survivor's guide to turn-of-the-century and millennial furor. It offers data about events and relevant cultural traditions in the past and a framework within which to consider how we will interpret the waning age and how we can sensibly look ahead.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813334578
Publisher:	Westview Press
Publication date:	09/11/1998
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1380L (what's this?)

About the Author

Peter N Stearns

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition — Preface to the First Edition — The Millennium and Thinking About Time — The Millennium in Perspective — The Struggle for a Christian Calendar — The Year 1000: Real and Imagined Precedents — Refining the Calendar: Visions and Centuries, 1200–1850 — Apocalypse Now? — Assessing and Forecasting Millennia: Beyond the Apocalypse — Transition: From Millennia to Centuries — Turning the Century — Hailing the 20th Century: Fireworks and Fin de Siècle — Where Is Our Fin de Siècle? — The 20th Century: Guidelines for the Retrospective — Forecasting the 21st Century — Conclusion — Postscript: Getting Ever Closer — For Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

Stearns (history, Carnegie-Mellon U.) investigates what if anything can be said about either the millennium or the century that is about to end. He reveals some established traditions as recent innovations, and some modern traits as ancient survivals. He also speculates on why the imminent click to zero is attracting so little interest. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

An intelligent debunking of end-of-the-millennium hype from historian Stearns (Carnegie-Mellon Univ.)

What is the end of the 20th century going to bring—especially when it is also the end of the second millennium? Probably not very much, according to Stearns, except that the Big Date (he opts for 2001, rather than 2000) could provide an opportunity for us to take a long look at our society and where we are going. Stearns begins by reminding us that the whole idea of the calendar as we know it is very relative: Not only is our calendar Christian and just one among other ancient systems of reckoning time, but even its adoption in Christendom came relatively late—the French court was still using Constantine's system of 15-year cycles in the 13th century. Stearns describes how the stories of mass hysteria at the end of the first millennium have long been exposed as an anti-Catholic myth concocted by Enlightenment writers, such as Jules Michelet. Stearns gives us a brief tour through Christian millenarianism, including Nostradamus and 14th-century Joachim of Flora's vision of a coming era of the Holy Spirit. But the author notes that this outlook only really flourished among fringe groups during the Reformation; some found their way to the New World and still constitute a vocal minority here. We are given a review of recent turn-of-the-century attitudes: How Americans in 1900 celebrated a coming era of progress, whereas fin-de-siècle Europeans were not so sure. Stearns offers a savvy commentary on our curious, contradictory society, with its emphasis on "impersonal friendliness" and lack of historical awareness, and makes his own guarded prognostications.

A welcome dose of sense as we begin to leave the decade, the century, the millennium.

Kirkus Reviews