Do you feel like we're living in the end times? Does it seem like everything is on fire and
one disaster follows another? Here's a small comfort: you're not the first to feel that way.
If there's one thing that people throughout history have agreed on it's that history wasn't
going to be around for much longer. This book is about the apocalypse and how humans have
always believed it to be very f*cking nigh. Across thousands of years we'll meet weird cults
failed prophets and mass panics holy warriors leading revolts in anticipation of the last days
and suburbanites waiting for aliens to rescue them from a doomed Earth. We'll journey back to
the 'worst period to be alive' as the world reeled from a simultaneous pandemic and climate
crisis. And we'll look to the future to ask the unnerving question: how might it all end? But
it's also a book about how we live in a world where catastrophe is always looming - whether
it's a madman with a nuclear button or the slow burn of environmental collapse. Because when we
talk about the end of the world what we really mean is the end of our world. Our obsession
with doomsday is really about change: our fear of it and our desire for it and how -
ultimately - we can find hope in it. Praise for the Brief History series: 'Uproarious . . .
Abundant good humour' The Times 'Witty entertaining and slightly distressing... You should
probably read it' Sarah Knight author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck
'Brilliant. Utterly utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson 'Very funny' Mark Watson 'Both
readable and entertaining' Telegraph
