A Beautiful Ending

“Martin’s case that the apocalypse is the midwife of modernity seems self-evidently right to me. My main frustration is that we need a second volume, on how the apocalypse has fared since 1800.”—Alec Ryrie, Financial Times

“[A] beautifully produced book. . . . Martin’s book ends beautifully as it begins, its apocalypse in the eternal now.”—Jonathan Locke Hart, Renaissance and Reformation

“Readers of A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World, John Jeffries Martin’s arresting and wide-ranging new study of apocalypticism in the early modern period, will learn all kinds of new things about the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.”—Varad Mehta, Washington Examiner

“In this fascinating and landmark study, John Jeffries Martin . . . gives us a fresh look at the notions of the Last Judgment in Europe. . . . Rethinking the history we ‘know’ is perhaps one of the hardest of all intellectual endeavors. Martin has laid out here, in this essential book, the roadmap for doing just that.”—Cliff Cunningham, Sun News Austin (blog)

“[Martin’s] engaging prose . . . reminds us that, while millenarian visions of the future could inspire violence, rebellion, and fear of ‘outsiders’ . . . the longing for the end also generated optimism, egalitarianism, and an ecumenical spirit.”—Brett Edward Whalen, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“What does it mean to live near the end of time and await the world’s rebirth, as generations of Jews, Christians and Muslims did? A Beautiful Ending is a masterful synthesis of the prognostications of faith, knowledge, and politics on a global stage. Martin’s book illuminates one of the enduring themes that shaped the medieval and early modern world.”—Paula E. Findlen, Stanford University

“In his elegantly braided analysis of the apocalyptic imagination among Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers, John Jeffries Martin recasts the world-making events of the late medieval and early modern periods. A Beautiful Ending is a beautiful book.”—Alan Mikhail, author of God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World

“Martin’s masterful and wide-ranging study places ideas about the end of the world in their historical context, demonstrating how the apocalyptic imagination allowed historical actors to confront difficult and often frightening circumstances. Their experiences inform our own contemporary historical moment.”—Elizabeth Horodowich, New Mexico State University

“A sweeping history of early modern apocalyptic and millenarian thought among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, when the end of history brought expectations of a golden age of peace. Martin provides a powerful history of the hopes and horrors produced by these apocalyptic fantasies with an eye to their continuity into our own times. Few books make early modern history more relevant to the present.”—Stuart Schwartz, Yale University

“In his richly detailed new book, John Jeffries Martin advances the striking hypothesis that apocalyptic thinking not only did not go away with the advent of modernity; it was one of the key forces that gave us our modern world. If he’s right, much of what we thought we knew bears rethinking.”—Benjamin M. Friedman, author of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
 
“Engaging and profoundly original, A Beautiful Ending treats Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thought about End Times as a source of modernity. Martin’s deft argument convinces that the proverbial rise of modern secularism is a myth.”—Edward Muir, Northwestern University