The idea of the complete annihilation of all life is a powerful and culturally universal concept. As human societies around the globe have produced creation myths, so too have they created narratives concerning the apocalyptic destruction of their worlds. This book explores the idea of the apocalypse and its reception within culture and society, bringing together 17 essays that explore both the influence and innovation of apocalyptic ideas from classical Greek and Roman writings to the foreign policies of today's United States.

As regards both academic historians and popular understandings since the rise of the Religious Right in the 1980s, analysis of American fundamentalism has neglected a large body of literature about gender roles and social conventions. Betty A. DeBerg's groundbreaking study fills that important gap, analyzing the roots and character of fundamentalism in light of rapid changes and severe disruptions in gender-role ideology and actual social behavior in America between 1880 and 1930. Unlike interpreters such as George Marsden -- who has seen the contemporary Religious Right's concerns over feminism, abortion, and the breakdown of the family as recent developments -- DeBerg convincingly argues that these concerns were central in the "first wave of American fundamentalism."--Back cover.