Everything must go : the stories we tell about the end of the world Cover Image

Everything must go : the stories we tell about the end of the world / Dorian Lynskey.

Summary:

"A rich, captivating, and darkly humorous look into the evolution of apocalyptic thought, exploring how film and literature interact with developments in science, politics, and culture, and what factors drive our perennial obsession with the end of the world. As Dorian Lynskey writes, "People have been contemplating the end of the world for millennia." In this immersive and compelling cultural history, Lynskey reveals how religious prophecies of the apocalypse were secularized in the early 19th century by Lord Byron and Mary Shelley in a time of dramatic social upheaval and temporary climate change, inciting a long tradition of visions of the end without gods. With a discerning eye and acerbic wit, Lynskey examines how various doomsday tropes and predictions in literature, art, music, and film have arisen from contemporary anxieties, whether they be comets, pandemics, world wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Y2K, or the climate emergency. Far from being grim, Lynskey guides readers through a rich array of fascinating stories and surprising facts, allowing us to keep company with celebrated works of art and the people who made them, from H.G. Wells, Jack London, W.B. Yeats and J.G. Ballard to The Twilight Zone, Dr. Strangelove, Mad Max and The Terminator. Prescient and original, Everything Must Go is a brilliant, sweeping work of history that provides many astute insights for our times and speaks to our urgent concerns for the future."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9780593468647
ISBN: 0593468643
ISBN: 9780593317099
ISBN: 0593317092
Physical Description: 500 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Edition: First American edition.
Publisher: New York, New York : Pantheon Books, 2025.
Copyright: ©2024

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [403]-470) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: apocalypse all the time -- prologue: God -- Part one: the last man. Darkness ; the last man -- Part two: impact. Falling stars ; Doomsday rocks -- Part three: the bomb. Dreaming of the bomb ; Destroyer of worlds ; Deliverance or doom ; The doomsday machine ; Winter -- Part four: machines. Robots ; Computers ; Artificial intelligence -- Part five: collapse. Catastrophe ; Survival -- Part six: pandemic. Pestilence ; Contagion ; Zombies -- Part seven: climate. Too hot ; Too many people ; Too cold ; Too late -- Epilogue: the last day.