Existential Threats: American Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Technological Era 9780812294019

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Existential Threats

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Existential Threats American Apocalyptic Beliefs in the Technological Era

Lisa Vox

u n i v e r s i t y o f p e n N s y lva n i a p r e s s philadelphia

Copyright © 2017 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-­­4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-­­free paper 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Library of Congress Cataloging-­­in-­­Publication Data Name: Vox, Lisa, author. Title: Existential threats : American apocalyptic beliefs in the   technological era / Lisa Vox. Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press,   [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016049309 | ISBN 9780812249194 (hardcover : alk.  paper) Subjects: LCSH: End of the world. | End of the world—Forecasting. |  Eschatology. | Eschatology—Forecasting. |   Americans—Attitudes—History—20th century. | Christianity and   culture—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC BT877 .V69 2017 | DDC 306.0973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049309

For Ford

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Contents

Preface ix Chapter 1. Secularizing the Apocalypse

1

Chapter 2. Race, Technology, and the Apocalypse

19

Chapter 3. Postnuclear Fantasies

55

Chapter 4. Spaceship Earth

88

Chapter 5. The Politics of Science and Religion

114

Chapter 6. Postapocalyptic American Identity

142

Chapter 7. Post-­­9/11 Despair

167

Notes 195 Selected Bibliography

237

Index 257 Acknowledgments 265

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P r e f a ce

I grew up during the Reagan era in a Southern Baptist stronghold—​­the subwhere dispensationalist premillennialism bathed my urbs of Memphis—​­ childhood in apocalyptic anxiety. I worried about being “left behind” long before Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote their series of novels under that title. In college and graduate school at the turn of the millennium, I discovered the extent to which nonevangelicals found it difficult to take such ideas seriously, which surprised me because I knew so many people for whom those ideas constituted a compelling reality. But my surprise was also because the dispensationalist concepts of the Rapture, societal decline, and an Antichrist never seemed that far afield from American culture to me, either as a child living in that milieu or as an adult working in the academy. I became interested in explaining the power of conservative evangelical beliefs about the end-­times and understanding how they came to be. This book is the result. Existential Threats explores how dispensationalist premillennialism emerged alongside a scientific understanding of the end of the world during the late nineteenth century and how these two allegedly competing visions of the world have dominated American cultural conversations about the future since 1945. During my 1980s childhood, fearing a nuclear war with the Soviets and worrying about the rise of the Antichrist didn’t seem contradictory, though the adult purveyors of those two visions viewed each other with disdain. When we look at the history and development of the two worldviews, their similarities outshine their differences. Apocalyptic writers and commentators have acknowledged the similarities between dispensational premillennialism and scientific apocalypticism at times, but by the new millennium, proponents of each saw the other as knowingly dealing in false ideas.

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The end of the Cold War in 1991 was supposed to end conflicts over big ideas, proving that secular democratic capitalism was, as the political scientist Francis Fukuyama put it, “the end of history.” What a shock for secular Westerners that the even older wars of religion were not over. When 9/11 awakened the West to religiously fueled rage from the East, premillennialists incorporated the emergence of Islamic terrorism into their worldviews far more easily since they believed that the final battle of Armageddon would be the ultimate religious conflict. Liberal Americans struggled to balance a fear of Islamic terrorism with their ideals of tolerance and diversity. Some liberals, like conservatives, have since concluded that Islam itself is incompatible with Western ideals, but more often they have decided that a faulty reading of Islam or fundamentalist versions of religion in general is the problem.1 At its most extreme, this argument says rid the world of supernaturalism and we will all live happily together Star Trek–­­style on Spaceship Earth until the computers become sentient and either kill us or translate our spirits from our bodies into 0s and 1s for eternity. Does that last bit seem far-­fetched to you? Conservative evangelicals are not the only ones confronted with doubt or even ridicule for their beliefs about the destiny of humankind. Though we lack a scientific understanding of human consciousness, prominent figures in science and technology, such as Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Steve Wozniak, have warned that the development of artificial intelligence could lead to human extinction. Musk labeled smart computers as “our biggest existential threat” on a list that most recently includes climate change, species extinction, pandemics, and asteroid impacts.2 Judging the likelihood of such scenarios is not the goal of my work. I do not treat science as a mere social construction, nor do I deny the reality of existential threats like climate change facing us today. Rather, my narrative describes how over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Americans interpreted scientific and technological threats to humanity through an eschatological framework by using the languages of science and religion. The eschatological ideas monopolizing twenty-­first-­century American culture originated in the late nineteenth century. The theory of evolution as articulated by Charles Darwin provided the underpinnings for one scenario, while the other emerged among the conservative evangelicals who adopted a systematic version of Bible prophecy known as dispensational premillennialism. Contemporaries advanced the notion that these two understandings of

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the world diametrically opposed each other, a view that American scholars formally proclaimed in two histories: John William Draper’s History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science in 1874 and Andrew Dickson White’s History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom in 1896.3 These two works promoted the idea that there was an unbridgeable rift between religion and science that dated back centuries. Modern scholars have largely rejected this thesis, sometimes called the “conflict thesis.” Ronald L. Numbers, a historian of science who has written on the American historiography of this idea, complains that the warfare metaphor has disguised the complexities of the relationship between religion and science while unfairly maligning the former. Historians have shown that the usage of the terms “science” and “religion” to indicate discrete categories of human activity disguises how Westerners historically conducted investigations into the natural world and God in concert.4 Over the course of the 1800s, a wide range of partisans debated the origins of life as well as the ages of the Earth and the universe. As participants in these debates staked out their positions, especially regarding the role of God in these matters, they sought to differentiate themselves. Our inheritance from those disputes includes a vocabulary with terms like objectivity, technology, and the scientific method in addition to a categorization of bodies of knowledge and associated activities as distinct from one another, such as science, religion, theology, and technology. Americans don’t live as if science and religion are separate, nonoverlapping spheres, as the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould characterized the science-­and-­religion relationship in 1999.5 Neither do most people stagger around awkwardly in a permanent state of cognitive dissonance because they hold beliefs, at times contradictory, drawn from a variety of religious, scientific, and cultural sources. Perhaps, then, we should show no astonishment that an American history of ideas about the destiny of humanity since the late nineteenth century reveals similarities between scientific and religious visions of the End. This holds true even for science devotees who increasingly believed conservative evangelicals were dangerously antiscience and for conservative evangelicals who, by the end of the twentieth century, promoted the charge that scientists and their sympathizers actively deceive the public about threats like climate change. That dispensational premillennialism in particular offers insight into understanding how scientists developed their own views about the future is a testament to what we can learn from subjecting both to the same historical analysis. For their part, far from challenging or failing to respect science,

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premillennialists have integrated scientific conclusions into biblical interpretations. Hewing to an older paradigm stressing that a lone scientist can conduct investigations into nature that prove Truth, dispensational premillennialists have continuously bolstered their biblical interpretations with reference to scientific figures, ideas, and works. Nor have scientific apocalypticists only engaged issues that fall strictly into the territory of what repeated experimentation and observation can determine. As they faced the threats they feared would cause the end of the world, scientific apocalypticists addressed matters such as the most ethical way to live and the purpose of human existence. When there appeared to be conflict between the two apocalyptics, scientific apocalypticists were the ones who initiated it by painting premillennialists in an unflattering light. In the 1990s, more premillennialists began to question the science behind environmentalism, but they did so in the context of both scientists and the wider public contesting the idea of infallible scientific authority. In an analysis of nonfiction, novels, short stories, and films produced between the nineteenth century and the present day, I uncover rhetorical and thematic similarities between dispensational premillennialism and scientific apocalyptic beliefs, showing they are concerned with the same fundamental questions about the meaning of life and the fate of humankind. Science did not necessarily produce different, more realistic, or more rational responses to global problems; rather, both fields offered similar scenarios and solutions to man-­made, existential threats emanating from technological developments for much of the twentieth and early twenty-­first centuries. The way Americans face existential threats today is indebted to the related histories and similarities between religion and science. In the nineteenth century, the scientific apocalyptic was new and less like a religious apocalyptic at that time than at any other period since. Initial scientific apocalyptic musings wondered how nature could effect the end of the world. Soon, however, scientific apocalypticists wondered how humans could cause the end of the world or of the species; as they speculated on a man-­ made apocalypse, they adopted premillennial language and scenarios. Each apocalyptic during this period described a perpetual sense of crisis because of an impending catastrophe caused by human action. That the rhetoric of both religious and scientific apocalyptics was analogous is not a coincidence. Conservative evangelicals purposely incorporated science into their visions of the End. While scientific apocalypticists did not always consciously duplicate the way premillennialists envisioned the End, they did not have a language of crisis of their own. As scientific apocalypticists tried to warn humans

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about the dangers facing them and push the solutions that they thought were necessary to lessen such hazards, they tended to imagine scenarios and use language similar to what dispensational premillennialists used. Science fiction has been key in the development of the scientific apocalyptic since the late 1800s. It fleshed out the apocalyptic by exposing what is only implicit in much popular science writing: that humanity is deserving of judgment, and only a worthy remnant emerging from a worldwide disaster will survive to build a better world—​­just as premillennialists believed would happen during the end-­times. The historian James Gilbert has written about the relationship between science fiction and religion: “Frequently stories contained prophecy, revelation of things to come, secret knowledge, myths about origins and ends, the paranormal, and salvation imposed from ­beyond—​­all of which addressed the sorts of questions that religion traditionally answered.”6 Gilbert maintains that science fiction counted among its readers professional scientists who appreciated that science fiction could deal with the implications of their discoveries and theories from a partisan perspective.7 As we shall see, American science fiction writers after 1945 assumed the mantle of prophecy, while scientists themselves sometimes wrote fiction in an advocacy role. In addition to science fiction writers, the scientific apocalyptic included scientists who wrote books aimed at laypersons about the fate of humanity (and the world) and popular science journalists who wrote to warn Americans that they needed to change their way of life. All scientific apocalypticists, from scientists to science fiction authors, engaged the same basic questions about the purpose of life that premillennialists did. Michael Shermer, a science historian writing in 2006, argues, “Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.”8 In telling this epic saga, scientists and science fiction writers presented remarkably similar stories to the ones that conservative evangelicals told. The endpoints of the stories that each provided to make sense of the world and ease the fears of worried Americans differed from one another. Premillennialists’ answer to all problems facing humanity was Jesus Christ, whose return was the event all of human history led up to. Christ would stop humans from destroying each other in a nuclear war and would cleanse the Earth of pollution. Meanwhile, scientific apocalypticists, despite using the language and formulae of premillennialists, looked at the same problems facing the world and proposed political, technological, and, toward the end of

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the twentieth century, vaguely spiritual solutions. Both felt that humans were guilty of terrible acts (and feared that humanity would not restrain itself in the future from even worse acts involving nuclear war or damage to the environment). For premillennialists, Christ could change an individual’s heart to make him or her more mindful of the environment; accepting Christ was also the only way to live through any final nuclear or environmental crisis. Scientific apocalypticists envisioned a fundamental flaw within the human species itself, akin to original sin. Without a messiah to save individuals, science fiction writers came up with various salvation plans, including purging the species through nuclear war, but also imagined that humans might simply pollute their surroundings to the extent that all life would simply perish. Since 9/11, this fatalism has suffused the scientific apocalyptic, bringing it even closer to the perspective of premillennialists who have washed their hands of the world. As the scientific apocalyptic developed alongside dispensational premillennialism in the United States, these theories responded to the same societal trends. Despite their similarities, the two apocalyptics consciously characterized themselves as constituting opposing worldviews by the end of the twentieth century. Chapter 1 describes how dispensational premillennialism, imported from Britain, began making inroads among evangelicals during the same period that witnessed the emergence of the scientific apocalyptic among the British and Europeans in the wake of On the Origin of Species (1859). Both were initially minority viewpoints in the United States. Postrevolutionary Americans had entered the nineteenth century having embraced the empirical and political ideals of the Enlightenment as well as the emphases on personal salvation and evangelism of the Great Awakening. Even after the Civil War, Americans were confident in the human capability for progress, but racial superiority helped broker the peace between Yankee and Confederate.9 By the turn of the century, most white Americans agreed with Europeans that Western nations were spiritually, culturally, and racially better suited to lead the rest of the world. Chapter 2 demonstrates how the development of the scientific apocalyptic and the spread of dispensational premillennialism proceeded apace up until World War II, despite this optimism. Americans prided themselves on their technological accomplishments, but, whether evangelical or not, there was also a growing foreboding about the future of the United States and the world. Christian and secular-­minded British and Europeans alike shared in this mounting fear that the world was in a state of decline with destruction

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perpetually threatening, and Americans engaged this viewpoint in fiction and nonfiction. The idea that human history was not a never-­ending story of progress eventually gave way to apocalypticism among scientists and science fiction writers on both sides of the Atlantic with the invention of the nuclear bomb in 1945. Chapter 3 focuses on how the bomb became the first existential threat to penetrate the public consciousness, captivating both religious and scientific apocalypticists in the United States. As scientific apocalypticists learned to live with the perennial threat of destruction, the scientific doomsday became as ingrained and commonplace as that of premillennialists. In Chapter 4’s chronicle of environmentalism, atomic fears led naturally to environmental ones and the incorporation of environmental disasters into the scientific apocalyptic occurred within the religious apocalyptic. Fame and profit accrued to both religious and scientific apocalyptic writers and observers during the 1970s, accompanying a decline among Americans in their faith in government, national destiny, and scientific authority. By the 1980s, the period covered in Chapter 5, the politicization of evangelicals had happened alongside the politicization of nuclear and environmental threats, and scientific and religious apocalypticists had begun to address one another overtly while still sharing assumptions about the state of the world. Chapter 6 covers the interregnum between the Cold War and the War on Terror, when nuclear anxiety receded in favor of environmental worries. Though dispensational premillennialists started to question the science behind the environmental threat, scientists and their supporters joined the rest of the country in worrying that science, without a spiritual transformation, could not solve the world’s problems. From 9/11 to the present, as I portray in Chapter 7, scientific and religious apocalypticists have produced an incredible amount of fiction and nonfiction, flooding all forms of media with apocalyptic fantasies. Even as Americans have become aware of the differences between dispensational premillennialism (minus the details) and a scientific understanding of how the world will end, the two still share language and scenarios as well as assumptions about the future. The result is a distinctive American apocalypticism that enthralls a divided country in the context of mounting doubts over the War on Terror, continued American power, and the fate of humanity in a warming world. Recognizing the entanglement of religious and scientific understandings of the world should encourage more empathy from people who place

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themselves firmly in one camp or the other. Though the media continues to speak of red states pitted against blue, history can show the common ground that even the extremes of those two perspectives occupy. When we look at the history and evolution of scientific apocalyptic beliefs as well as of dispensational premillennialism, we could impose a simplistic story of good versus evil on the one hand or of ignorant superstition versus rational intellect on the other. Neither narrative would capture adequately how and why Americans have responded to modern-­day existential threats in ways that recall both the book of Revelation and On the Origin of Species.

Chapter 1

Secularizing the Apocalypse

Westerners did not seriously consider that the world could end without a supernatural cause until scientists offered a convincing explanation for a naturalistic origin of the world. Creation stories help societies make sense of their existence, but an account of the beginning of the world and the origins of humankind would be incomplete without an account of its ending.1 Until the late nineteenth century, the dominant assumption in the West for over two thousand years had been that a supernatural force created humanity and would similarly act as the instrument of the world’s destruction. Prior to the late nineteenth century, intellectuals who rejected a supernatural model of creation struggled with the project of offering alternative models of the world’s beginning or posited an infinite universe, often in order to strengthen atheistic beliefs. Scholars have debated to what degree these alternative models anticipated the theory of evolution.2 The lack of a secular explanation for what would happen to the world in the future corresponded to the lack of a solid account of how the world might have come into being without God. In 1859 Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection provided the basis for the widespread acceptance of evolution, but Darwin’s theory also unintentionally furnished a naturalistic “creation story,” bolstering religious skepticism. With an established scientific origins story, Westerners began to theorize that the world could end (or at least humanity could become extinct) without any assistance from God or possibly even due to human misadventure. Darwin’s theory constituted an important intellectual shift, as scientists increasingly left theological concerns out of their work completely and argued that science and religion attempt to answer different questions.3

2 Chapter 1

The American scientific apocalyptic emerged from the British and European discussions of Darwinism’s implications for human destiny. The historian Jacques Barzun’s observation that “the Origin of Species was greater as an event than as a book” emphasizes the importance that Darwin’s work had in its long-­term impact as a synthesis of biological and geological studies, far beyond what Darwin and his supporters could have ever predicted.4 Though Darwin avoided talking about the origins of life itself, his work also had clear theological ramifications. Darwin was sensitive to that but worried far more about the critical response of other scientists, mostly geologists and paleontologists, to his work.5 When he finally published in 1859 after a lengthy delay, the impetus was the news that another scientist, Alfred Wallace, had come to similar conclusions and was about to scoop Darwin.6 Darwin had a preview of a possible reaction to his Origin of Species in 1844 when a naturalistic history of the world by an anonymous author appeared in England. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation took the reader from the formation of stars and planets to the origins of humankind, arguing for the development of all things according to the action of natural laws. Victorian elites widely read and discussed the book, and, at the behest of the author, inexpensive editions came out in the hopes of broadening the audience even further. The controversy surrounding its author (Robert Chambers, a publisher and phrenologist, as it was finally revealed in 1884 after his death) aided its popularity as Victorians made a game out of identifying the probable author within their circles. Those sympathetic to the work suggested it had many scientific faults, but the most vehement critics saw it as an outright attack on Christianity.7 Despite the book’s invocation of a Creator, Chambers’s argument was seen as consistent with the supposed materialism, or atheism, of the French Revolution.8 Though most Enlightenment thinkers were Deists, their naturalistic philosophies and anticlericalism had often been read as evidence of atheism. In particular, Baron d’Holbach’s The System of Nature (1770) promised to free men from supernatural beliefs by showing how reason could explain the workings of the universe.9 In d’Holbach’s account, matter was eternal, and all processes related to matter could be attributed to its properties. D’Holbach’s System of Nature represented an extreme view among the philosophes themselves, but the attacks on the clergy and Maximilien Robespierre’s project of secularizing France in the 1790s resulted in the loss of such fine distinctions. The severe reaction against the French Revolution in

Secularizing the Apocalypse 3

England meant that science that smacked of atheism not only threatened the Anglican establishment but also had a political dimension that threatened the stability and order of society. The debate over the 1844 Vestiges, as the historian James Secord has demonstrated, provoked conversations across Britain about a host of issues, including the propriety of women in science, the ability of the masses to grasp science, as well as the role of God in creating life. Darwin studied Vestiges for arguments he needed to address in his own evolutionary treatise, and his observation of the controversy surrounding the 1844 book also made him determined to avoid the charge of having written a popular, rather than scholarly, treatment.10 After Darwin, Western scientists could dismiss neither evolution nor natural selection without serious consideration. Origin’s reach extended well beyond the realm of biology. Contemporary scientific debates about naturalistic processes in geology and physics coalesced around Darwin’s publication. Geologists found the idea of progressive and gradual change problematic, while physicists objected to the time scale implied by natural selection. In these debates, scientists did not always directly invoke either a Christian God or a Creator, but God’s existence formed a powerful subtext. Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, published in three volumes in the early 1830s, had influenced Darwin’s thinking on the age of the Earth, the process of change, and the use of present-­day examples in nature to speculate about the past. Lyell’s work established uniformitarianism in geology as opposed to the catastrophism that assumed that disasters punctuated the Earth’s past and were responsible for geological formations like mountains. Catastrophism was consistent with biblical creationism and the Flood myth. For Lyell, unconcerned with the biblical account, slow and steady changes, such as the action of water in forming valleys, marked the Earth’s geological past. But Lyell also rejected the idea of transmutation, or the idea that the simpler forms of life had led to more complex forms, as a violation of the uniformitarian principle that the same forces had always been at work and were directionless.11 On that reading, species were essentially unchanged from their first appearances. By 1859, Lyell had dispelled the sway catastrophism had over geology, but he had also posed powerful arguments against evolution as incompatible with uniformitarianism.12 When he finally accepted evolution in the early 1860s, it was a theistic version that did not apply to humans.13 While Lyell struggled with accepting transmutation, physicists like William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), who had articulated the principles of

4 Chapter 1

thermodynamics in the 1840s and 1850s, rejected natural selection on the grounds that it required the Earth to be far older than it could be. In the 1830s, Lyell did not attempt to date the Earth and cautioned against the tendency to “assign limits” to the amount of time the universe or the Earth had been in existence.14 In the first edition of Origin of Species, Darwin, like Lyell, also avoided naming a specific age but suggested that it had been three hundred million years since the Weald, or a plain, in southern England had lost its trees. Thomson found these apparently limitless dating schemes untenable. Thomson, along with Rudolf Clausius, had elaborated the second law of thermodynamics, or the idea that heat flows toward cooler objects in an irreversible process, in the early 1850s.15 Clausius named the process “entropy” in an 1865 article that also contained his classic statement of the second law of thermodynamics that “the energy of the universe is constant. The entropy of the universe tends towards a maximum.”16 Scientific detractors to the idea of entropy actually rejected it because it was compatible with a creationist account, arguing instead that the universe was actually infinite.17 Not until the 1880s did a godless “heat death” start to capture the popular imagination in England and the United States. For Thomson, his studies on heat loss meant that the universe must have had a beginning and an end, and he could use his suppositions about the dissipation of energy to date the world in the wake of Darwin’s publication.18 During the 1860s, Thomson published articles that criticized Darwin on the basis that the world could not be as old as Darwin needed it to be for natural selection to have performed its work. In 1862, Thomson estimated that the sun was between one hundred and five hundred million years old and the Earth between twenty million and four hundred million years old, based on the length of time it must have taken for those bodies to cool. By 1868, he had landed on a probable age of the Earth as one hundred million years old, based on what the shape of the Earth suggested about the decline in rotational speed over time. None of these estimates were enough for a slow, evolutionary development of life. Thomson continued refining his arguments and revising the age of the Earth downward for the rest of the century, garnering increased support from geologists and physicists.19 Many of the biologists who disagreed with Darwin’s assertion that natural selection was the driver of evolution also concluded that it defied God’s immanence. The theory of natural selection, insofar as it provided a reasonable explanation as to how life could have evolved without a Creator, was a plausible alternative to the account of creation in the book of Genesis.20 For

Secularizing the Apocalypse 5

believers in this alternative “creation story,” the removal of God from the origins of humanity left the future of the human species open to an arbitrary and unplanned series of events, similar to that which had resulted in the evolution of human life. After Darwin published Origin of Species, evolution largely became the accepted explanation in the scientific community for how life had developed, but the social and theological implications of evolutionary theory troubled many scientists in the nineteenth century. The notion that humans had evolved from apes prompted questions about human nature. Such questions could undermine the rule of elites by challenging their birthright or could deny an innate moral sense to humans.21 In the first edition of Origin, Darwin wrote, “I must premise, that I have nothing to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself.”22 But the intensity of that statement paled before others, such as his closing remark: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”23 Though Darwin did not directly discuss human evolution until 1871 in The Descent of Man, it did not take much creativity to conclude that natural selection had worked upon humans just as it had on animals. Doubts about natural selection persisted until the 1930s and 1940s. One of the main obstacles to the acceptance of natural selection among scientists was a continued view of evolution as progressive.24 In the decades after Darwin first proposed natural selection, non-­Darwinian theories of evolution had upheld progress as inherent within the process and did not require as long of a time scale for their operation flourished.25 By the end of the 1800s, “neo-­Darwinian” became the label for scientists who explained evolution through the transmission of characteristics produced by natural selection.26 Darwin himself did not attribute evolutionary change to natural selection alone, and at times he leaned toward aspects of Lamarckism, or the idea that when a member of a species acquired a characteristic through use (or disuse), it could be inherited.27 Lamarckism, which came from the evolutionary theories of a French natural historian published in 1800, was consistent with a progressive worldview because it suggested

6 Chapter 1

that, as they adapted to their environments, organisms became increasingly complex.28 Alongside a continued regard for Lamarckism arose another rival interpretation to natural selection. Believers of orthogenesis attributed evolution “to a built-­in tendency or drive toward progress and ever greater perfection,” according to the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr.29 Although Darwin rejected the idea of a deity directing evolution toward a particular goal, he did see evolution as progressive, culminating in Homo sapiens.30 His belief in progress lent credence to the notion that evolution was teleological. While “Darwin’s bulldog,” the English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, tried to avoid talking about evolution as though it inexorably led to superior forms of species, Darwin himself tended to talk about the “perfection” of species, juxtaposed “civilized races” to “savages,” and upheld women as evolutionarily inferior to men.31 Theistic evolution, the concept that God directed evolution, was a popular way for people in the late nineteenth century to satisfy their desire to see design in the development of life. The biologist Asa Gray in the United States argued that God could have injected commands into the blueprints for organic development so that evolution would proceed according to His divine will. Theistic evolution, however, was not always an adequate answer to the theological questions that arose from evolution. The Democratic politician and creationist William Jennings Bryan in 1922—​­three years before the Scopes “monkey trial”—​­asserted that the widespread acceptance of evolution could result in feeling that existence was pointless even if evolutionists retained a belief in God as Creator. To Bryan, evolution deprived humanity of a “personal God” by removing the supernatural and miraculous from everyday life.32 Bryan concluded that placing God at such a far remove could lead to agnosticism or atheism.33 However, even for evolutionists who avoided such spiritual pitfalls, in Bryan’s opinion the lack of a personal God still could deprive a life of meaning. Bryan wrote, “Darwinism offers no reason for existence and presents no philosophy of life; the Bible explains why man is here and gives us a code of morals that fits into every human need.”34 Eroding the idea that humans were created in God’s image, evolution triggered doubts about the practicality of social progress, especially in one individual’s life given the age of the Earth, and about the presence of a design for humanity (since even theistic evolution suggested that God had long stopped intervening in earthly events).35 Theistic evolution largely faded

Secularizing the Apocalypse 7

among evolutionary theorists by 1900, but it was indicative of the continued craving for design and progress in evolution.36 When Bryan referred to “Darwinism,” he alluded not to the theory of natural selection but to evolutionary theory as a whole. In fact, it would have been remarkable if Bryan had challenged natural selection; while evolutionary theory largely overcame opposition by the 1870s, the theory of natural selection encountered resistance even from many professional scientists until the 1940s.37 The discovery of Mendelian genetics at the turn of the twentieth century at first presented a challenge to neo-­Darwinism, but in the 1930s and 1940s biologists fashioned the “evolutionary synthesis,” an integration of genetics into the theory of natural selection. The evolutionary synthesis was an intellectual development that put neo-­Darwinian theory at the core of the biological sciences.38 Even with the enunciation of the evolutionary synthesis that made natural selection the accepted means of evolution, the tendency to see progress in evolution remained. The grandson of Thomas Huxley and a biologist at Oxford University in England, Julian Huxley, wrote Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, one of the works in the 1940s that articulated the evolutionary synthesis. Discussing the issue of teleological tendencies among evolutionists, Huxley remarked on one troubling implication: “If man were wiped out, it is in the highest degree improbable that the step to conceptual thought would again be taken, even by his nearest kin.”39 Huxley shied away from asserting that evolution necessarily leads to the creation of humankind, but, as Huxley made clear, our present evolution ended with the development of sentience, an important advance that we must not take for granted. Huxley’s warning may have been necessary because after the publication of Origin of Species, Western writers began to speculate that another species might displace Homo sapiens. It is in this realization—​­that natural selection meant humans might not exist in the future—​­that the origin of a scientific apocalyptic lies. Scholars have not agreed on the origins of secular apocalypticism. The literary scholar W. Warren Wagar saw the development of what has been called the “secular apocalypse” as dating to 1826 with Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man, one of a series of “last man” novels written by British and European Romantics in the nineteenth century.40 These works contained depictions of the end of the world from the perspective of a lone survivor. Other scholars have concentrated on twentieth-­century trends as the source of a secular apocalyptic. The political scientist Michael Barkun sees

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secular apocalypticism emerging from scientists during the 1960s and 1970s due to the environmental movement, the turmoil of the civil rights movement and antiwar movement, and the oil shortages of the 1970s. He says scientists became convinced of a pessimistic future: “The scientific world view, which had grown accustomed to increasingly effective future predictions, became the victim of its virtues as extrapolations of present trends pointed toward global calamity.”41 Spencer Weart, a physicist who writes science history, pinpoints the beginning of speculation regarding the destructive (and hopeful) possibilities of atomic power at the beginning of the twentieth century as the real beginning of a secular apocalyptic in Nuclear Fear.42 The historian Chris Lewis responded to Barkun’s analysis in a 1992 article. He places the origin of secular apocalypticism in the 1930s, seeing it as part of a backlash against science.43 He considers this backlash to be a part of a long intellectual tradition in Western society: “What Barkun calls secular apocalypticism, and I call ecological apocalypticism, grew out of the fear of sixteenth and seventeenth century Christian and cultural critics that human domination of nature would cause the decay and death of the natural world.”44 Unlike Wagar, Lewis argues that the last man stories “are not really secular stories because it is almost impossible to determine whether the end of the world is caused by nature alone or by God’s punishment of humanity through nature for its sin and arrogance.”45 I argue that Wagar was right to pinpoint the Romantic period as the era during which the first known contemplations of a fictional secular apocalypse emerged in the West. Shelley’s work made no mention of God or any deity as causing the end of the world, but in fact she was playing with a theme that other writers had addressed earlier in the nineteenth century. During the Romantic period, contemplations on possible ends of the world unrelated to theology tended to be more philosophical in their reflections, rather than scientific, and may properly be termed secular. By the 1870s fictional apocalypses in the West would be connected to current scientific and technological trends. A look at Romantic-­era last man narratives is useful for distinguishing between a secular apocalyptic and a scientific apocalyptic. After Darwin gave Westerners a feasible naturalistic creation story, fiction and nonfiction writers grounded their descriptions of how the world might end without God in science. Earlier writers exploring a secular apocalypse made no attempt to explain how the world had ended without God, let alone how one man could be left after an apocalypse. Rather such works used the apocalypse as

Secularizing the Apocalypse 9

metaphor to explore themes of loneliness, disillusionment, and existential despair. The secular apocalyptic last man stories found their inspiration in an earlier entry in the nineteenth-­century last man genre. This work, Le Dernier Homme by the French writer Cousin de Grainville, deviated from the biblical apocalyptic associated with the books of Daniel and Revelation but emphasized a continuing belief in God, sometimes in an explicitly Christian God. It is the earliest known last man work in the West. Published posthumously in France in 1805, a pirated translation appeared in England the following year with no authorial credit.46 De Grainville posits a last man and woman who parallel the first man and woman, Adam and Eve. He situated his account firmly within a Christian understanding of the End.47 De Grainville himself had been a Catholic priest forced to marry during the French Revolution.48 His suicide does not detract from the novel’s anti-­atheistic and hopeful message involving the translation of humanity into heaven. There were only two last man works of literature that could properly be termed atheistic, involving a true rejection of divine action ending the world or redeeming humanity at the end of time. Vijay Mishra, a literature professor, has compared traditional “millenarian” works with the Gothic apocalyptic, noting that “a millenarian end affirms history and our place in a larger design, [while] Gothic apocalypse narratives portray a world exhausted and otiose.”49 While last man works written from a purely atheistic perspective were rare, they are notable for illustrating how Christian apocalypticism inspired reflections on a secular apocalypse and how these secular visions of the world differed from later scientific conceptions of the End. Of the two atheistic works, the most explicit rejection of a supernatural ending for the world was found in Lord Byron’s poem “Darkness.” Byron, a legend in British literary circles even during his own time, wrote the poem while in a moody funk after the end of his marriage, but the poem damaged his image, earning him epithets such as the “head of the Satanic school.” Byron’s poem lacked an explanation for the apocalypse and did not feature a millennium following the eschaton. As contemporaries of Byron noted, “Darkness” included apocalyptic elements that resonated with prophetic passages from Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation.50 Byron wrote his poem during the summer of 1816, a year that many called “the year without a summer,” because of its unusually cold temperatures and dark skies. Not known to Westerners then, the eruption of a volcano in Tambora, Indonesia, the prior year had caused the seemingly apocalyptic climatic conditions. The

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idea for Byron’s poem came to him on a particularly dark day that summer when candles had to be lit to provide light enough for writing and reading even at noon.51 The portrait of the last days that Byron painted was harsh and barren: The world was void, The populous and the powerful—​­was a lump, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—​­ A lump of death—​­a chaos of hard clay. The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their silent depths.52 What is important about Byron’s use of biblical imagery is “what Byron did not take from the Bible,” as Morton Paley, a scholar of Romantic literature, notes.53 Byron’s poem raises the hopes of a millennium by playing with biblical imagery to describe the actual End. For instance, men and women in Byron’s poem had “but one thought—​­and that was death” as total darkness fell upon the Earth; similarly, Revelation reports that “and in those days shall men seek death” but according to biblical account, men “shall not find it.”54 Byron’s vision disturbed his contemporaries, and commentators suggested that he had broached a topic that was unthinkable. Byron’s idea of humanity living and dying in an empty and meaningless way remained unimaginable to the Westerners who later articulated a scientific apocalypse. Mary Shelley was a close friend of Byron’s; her novel The Last Man tells of a tight-­knit group of couples that slowly experience the end of the world due to an inexplicable plague. By the end, only the narrator, Lionel Verney, remains, as the last man. Verney occupies his isolation by writing a personal history of his life and of the last days of humanity. He remarks on the futility of writing: “I . . . ​will write a book, I cried—​­for whom to read?—​­to whom dedicated? And then with silly flourish (what so capricious and childish as despair?) I wrote, ‘DEDICATION / TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD. / SHADOWS, ARISE, AND READ YOUR FALL! / BEHOLD THE HISTORY OF THE / LAST MAN.’ ”55 While Verney questions the very possibility that his account will be read, Shelley as author formally addressed the issue by transforming the account into a prophecy. The “author’s introduction” tells readers that the author discovered Verney’s narrative, which takes place in the year 2100, on a trip to Naples in 1818 upon a visit to “Sibyl’s Cave,” with “Sibyl” a reference to a

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legendary female prophet in ancient Rome.56 While Shelley redresses the problem formally, she does not escape the dilemma that is embedded in the last man genre; in their implicit assumption of a readership, fictional narratives of a last man suggest a resistance to an end of the world without design. Documenting the final days of human life on Earth is an attempt to make sense of the event and, as Verney attempts to do, leave an epitaph for humanity. Shelley wrote her novel after the deaths of her husband, Percy Shelley; their friend Byron; and two of her children. The Last Man is an expression of her despair and loneliness in the aftermath of these losses. It also expresses the idea that humanity itself is alone, without any deity to provide comfort or meaning. Shelley’s atheism was empty and not humanistic, unlike later atheistic formulations. The last man’s account of the end of days as well as his desperate search for other survivors illustrates this bleak worldview that Shelley shared with Byron. Scientific apocalypticists, writing after Darwin, in many ways mirrored the attempts of Verney to understand his predicament, but Shelley’s novel itself was a performance for her contemporaries rather than a prophecy in itself, unlike how later end-­of-­the-­world novels would position themselves. These two atheistic last man works, while in the minority, laid a foundation for later scientific apocalyptic fiction, at least in terms of themes. One survivor (or a small group of survivors) of an apocalypse roaming the world in search of others is a theme that appears again in twentieth-­century end-­of-­ the-­world literature. While there were no American last man fictional explorations, American Gothic writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Robert W. Chambers, and H. P. Lovecraft approached the darkness of Byron and Shelley. Poe’s fantastical works, such as “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion” (1839) or “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842), reproduced the horrors humans could inflict upon themselves or each other, even before the Civil War had birthed the dark supernatural fictions of Ambrose Bierce. Chambers’s 1895 short-­story collection, The King in Yellow, connects several of its stories through the device of a book that turns readers insane and engineers their deaths. If Poe’s stories captured the irrationality and turmoil of human nature, Chambers’s stories hinted at malevolence in the world unexplainable by common sense or scientific thinking. Lovecraft, who has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, wrote what has been called “weird” fiction, works in the 1920s and 1930s that encompassed the horror and mystery of Poe and Chambers but also grasped the unimportance of humanity in a vast universe. Lovecraft “crafted a new gothic, linking

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it with science fiction, releasing a raw power of despair and disgust,” according to James Goho, an independent scholar.57 Modern atheists have adopted one of Lovecraft’s creations, a monstrous godlike hidden creature called Cthulhu, who in his fiction surreptitiously influences human existence, as a symbol of their unbelief. Though Lovecraft was a materialist, supernatural terror underpins his stories published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales. The men and women in his stories suffer from madness and eccentricity brought about by exposure to the inexplicable and nightmarish, and known science hardly limited Lovecraft’s imagination. Though Lovecraft influenced later American horror writers like Stephen King and modern-­day “weird fiction” authors like China Miéville, the scientific apocalyptic derived not from the terrible unknown but from the fearful implications of an evolutionary theory underpinned by natural selection. The despair of Byron and Shelley without a God to guide human history, echoed in the works of Americans like Chambers and Lovecraft, is not a strand followed in early scientific apocalyptic works. Until the nuclear age, most Western writers used science to mitigate the threat of a meaningless existence and purposeless end. After 1945, British apocalyptic works formed a literature of despair that might have pleased Byron and Shelley, but American apocalyptic works remained distinguished in their relative optimism throughout the twentieth century. At the same time that Byron and Shelley visualized ends of the world without God, British Christians were devising a detailed system of premillennialism that Americans would adopt and revise. At the beginning of the nineteenth century in the United States, postmillennialists and premillennialists were not too different from each other. Whether Christ was to return before or after the millennium, both groups felt an urgency: either the millennium or Christ’s return was at hand. By the end of the century, premillennialism had taken on a very distinct form among Protestants on both sides of the Atlantic. In the 1830s in Dublin, John Nelson Darby, a former priest in the Church of Ireland, began to express new views about the premillennial apocalypse that placed prophetic events in the future instead of locating them in the past.58 Known for ministering to the poor, Darby reported a salvation experience in 1827, which led him to seek “the true Church.” His premillennial views came into focus when he began meeting with like-­minded separatist evangelicals. Some of Darby’s friends in the group were British Zionists contemplating the treatment of Jews through history and the notion of a restored

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homeland. By 1833, Darby had begun to discuss the Rapture, the idea that Christ would return for believers separately prior to his Second Coming, at which time he would usher in the millennium.59 Some debate exists on the origins of the concept of the Rapture, with independent critics like Dave MacPherson suggesting that its true origins lay in the charismatic utterances of a Scottish girl named Margaret MacDonald in 1830. Darby himself credited the idea to his rethinking of the fate of Israel as separate from the destiny of the Church, according to the prophetic books of the Bible.60 Treating the Church separately from Israel, Darby introduced a pause into the prophetic timeline laid out in Daniel 9:24–­27. According to conservative evangelical interpretation, that outline predicted that 62 weeks (read as 434 years) would mark the period between the building of the second temple and the arrival of the Messiah, after which the Antichrist would deceive humanity before his ultimate defeat at the hands of Christ. In dispensationalism, the last week (or seven years) never came to pass because Jews rejected the Messiah, Jesus Christ. When Christ was crucified, according to this view, God halted the unfolding of the prophetic plan to allow the new message of salvation to spread. At a time of God’s choosing, he will start the clock ticking again on humanity’s time left on Earth. The Rapture will mark the reengagement of God’s timer. Darby’s system divided human history into “dispensations,” which he determined by the way in which God proffered salvation to humankind in different eras. Most important, there was a dispensation in which the law of Moses applied to the Jews and the current dispensation, the age of the Church, where Christ’s crucifixion was the determinant of salvation. The current dispensation would end after the Rapture when the unbelievers left on earth would undergo a seven-­year “Tribulation,” in which the Antichrist would rise to power and then fall at the hands of Christ upon his Second Coming.61 Called dispensational premillennialism, Darby’s doctrine began the articulation of a rather precise pattern of prophetic events that became associated with conservative Protestant eschatology by the end of the century in the United States.62 The same impulses that created the last man genre also generated an idea of Christ that “could readily be pictured by poetic imaginations fascinated by the strange, the awesome, and the supernatural,” as the historian David Bebbington has shown.63 From Darby’s Plymouth Brethren, dispensationalism spread to other premillennialists in Britain as well as to the United States. In England itself, dispensationalism was the sole purview of the Brethren,

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though other futurist premillennial interpretations grew among evangelicals in late Victorian Britain. Darby helped spread his views to the United States in a series of visits starting in the early 1860s. Not much is known about these visits, but from his letters we learn that he found people in St. Louis, Chicago, and Detroit especially welcoming to his views.64 Encounters with the American evangelists Dwight L. Moody and James Hall Brookes proved especially fruitful; these preachers accepted and spread dispensationalism from their pulpits and on speaking tours. As a result, dispensational premillennialism in the United States was never associated with one particular denomination. Preachers of Darby’s doctrine could be found in Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches.65 Brendan M. Pietsch’s recent Dispensational Modernism (2015) separates the history of dispensationalism from premillennialism, locating the roots of the former in the “popular fascination with applying technological m ­ ethods—​ ­such as quantification and classification—​­to the interpretation of texts and time.”66 Downplaying the role of Darby, Pietsch argues that dispensationalism grew out of the desire to develop a scientific understanding of the Bible that respected the Bible as an infallible, God-­inspired text. He makes too much of the separation between dispensationalism from premillennialism, especially by the turn of the twentieth century; dispensationalism was at its core another way to conduct Bible prophecy. Nevertheless, Pietsch helps explain why this particular interpretation found a home so readily in the United States. Using classification and categorization methods akin to those in engineering and biological sciences, dispensationalists appealed to the creed that an individual could uncover new meaning within the Bible as well as to the American love affair with things new and technological after the Civil War. The heyday of science as an infallible authority began in the late nineteenth century. As Britons and Americans conducted debates over the origins of humans and the age of the Earth, they drew boundaries between what they considered to be science and religion. Darwin, Huxley, and John Tyndall, an Irish physicist, worked to include only naturalistic descriptions of the world within the realm of science, and increasingly this became the standard way to depict science as opposed to religion in Britain and the United States.67 The professionalization of science led to its elaboration as a body of knowledge that experts build through deductive reasoning and experimentation.68 Societal progress was no longer a moral goal but associated with the increase of knowledge aimed at material improvement.69 Science itself represented

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progress over religion, while prescientific ages and cultures as so conceived were deemed inferior. The “scientific method” promised to uncover the solutions to all of society’s current and future problems.70 Conservative evangelicals shared this faith in science with the rest of Americans, even as scientists excluded theology, based on inductive reasoning, from science. Evangelical exegesis relied foremost on the Bible; the extent to which evangelicals incorporated science into their theology depended on how well it fit the biblical verses under interpretation.71 This was consistent with an earlier conception of science as natural philosophy, which assumed scientific findings could not conflict with religious understandings. Scottish commonsense realism was an influence on American evangelicals, who believed any individual armed with reason and godly inspiration could interpret the Bible accurately.72 Conservative evangelicals who used science to explain particular biblical passages or to support a literal interpretation of the Bible had, as a starting point, the infallibility and literality of the Bible. As science became an authority independent of religion, using the insights of modern science to explain the Bible was likely attractive to preachers struggling to add flair to their sermons. Dispensationalism provided such a framework for incorporating science and current events. Dispensationalism was not popular among the faculty of American Protestant seminaries, but its prominent advocates among popular ministers were enough to convert budding evangelical preachers. The historian Timothy P. Weber, in his 1979 history of premillennialism, cites a survey made in 1919 of 236 theological professors from twenty-­eight seminaries in eight denominations that discovered only seven premillennialists. Nevertheless, Weber emphasizes that premillennialism still had a strong following: “Premillennialists may not have had a majority of seminary professors on their side, but they could point to a number of respected and prominent evangelicals in their movement who were known neither for their eccentricities nor for their tendencies to follow after foolishness.”73 The doctrine did not spread from seminary professor to student but through the teachings of leaders of missions and prominent pastors from their pulpits. Weber concludes that after Moody promoted Darby’s system, “nearly every major evangelist . . . ​adopted his eschatology.”74 Moody’s followers at the Chicago seminary bearing his name and one of Brookes’s congregants, Cyrus Scofield, were further instrumental in spreading dispensationalism even after Darby’s death in 1882.

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A growing rift within U.S. Protestantism because of German criticism and historicism aided the growing acceptance of dispensational premillennialism. These trends cast doubt on the authenticity of certain parts of the Bible. When read scientifically, biblical dilemmas appeared: for instance, whether Jesus was supposed to return as quickly as his disciples seemed to expect. In response, liberal Protestants distanced themselves from the more mystical aspects of millennialism, which suggested an ongoing struggle between God and Satan in which good would ultimately triumph. Protestants in mainline denominations began to read the Bible more symbolically while conservative Protestants subjected the Bible to an ever more rigorous and literal reading.75 Unlike in America, British conservative evangelicalism did not coalesce around premillennialism, and dispensationalism increasingly became an American phenomenon. As living standards improved in England, the working class that was drawn to evangelicalism attended church less, distracted by the many entertainments more spending money could afford.76 British evangelicals were more accommodating of modernism, and the Holiness movement of the 1870s focused many evangelicals on missions instead of eschatology. Dispensationalism’s association with the Brethren along with its lack of support at Bible colleges in England likely further contributed to Darby’s system becoming more American. Dispensationalism joined two other rallying points—​­biblical literalism and infallibility as embodied in creationism—​­for the emerging fundamentalist movement in the United States. Though conservative British evangelicals participated in the fundamentalist movement, helping to pen the foundational essays “The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth” (1910–­1915), British “efforts to resist modernity lacked the aggressiveness and militancy of US churches,” according to the historian George Marsden. A recent history of toleration and theological flexibility typified British churches at the time.77 The Romantic tradition, which came later to the United States, as well as a British legal tradition that emphasized evolving interpretations predisposed the British to be more accepting of higher criticism emanating from German theologians. The Keswick Convention, meetings of British evangelicals inspired by Moody’s revivals held in Britain as well as in the United States, exemplified a tendency to adapt to new ideas rather than contest them. Pietsch’s analysis of dispensationalism belies the idea that British evangelicals were more receptive to modernism than Americans, and the growing

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use of science in American Bible prophecy, as we will see in the next chapter, supports Pietsch’s perspective. Where American evangelicals differed was in “republican perspicuity,” or in believing that anyone, regardless of institutional or professional status, could find religious Truth. This belief helped create a distinctive American religious culture in the nineteenth century, with novelty and dissent as its chief characteristics.78 This predisposition may have been more important in spreading dispensational premillennialism within the United States because people were willing to read and listen to preachers and laymen outside of their own denominations as long as they seemed to preach the Truth. Ernest Sandeen, a historian of evangelicalism, placed dispensational premillennialism at the center of the nineteenth-­century evangelical movement in the United States, an interpretation that Matthew Avery Sutton echoes in American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (2015). This is contra Marsden’s interpretation of fundamentalism in books published in the 1980s and 1990s, which characterized dispensational premillennialism as an important component but not the critical ingredient in fundamentalism (as separate from the broader movement of evangelicalism). Sutton defines fundamentalism “as radical apocalyptic evangelicalism,” which he sees as influencing broader evangelicalism despite later efforts of some evangelicals to distance themselves from fundamentalism.79 For our purposes, we should note that conservative evangelicals included not only those who would later be called fundamentalists but also members of the Holiness movement and, later, Pentecostals and charismatics. Not all conservative evangelicals or even premillennialists were dispensationalists, but a vocal majority within both groups became so by World War II. A belief in an inerrant, literal Bible united dispensationalists with other conservative evangelicals, but as dispensationalism came to dominate the conservative evangelical movement, doctrinal differences, such as the Calvinist belief in predestination, continued to be apparent and spurred divisions even within dispensational premillennialist interpretations. Dispensationalists pioneered the use of engineering techniques and scientific understandings to enhance the authority of the Bible, a practice that other conservative evangelicals would adopt in the twentieth century. Liberal Christians in Americans held no monopoly in the business of modernizing religion, either in the late 1800s or in the 1900s. The Bible spoke as loudly to Americans in the technological era as it had in the pre-­industrial age. In the

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1870s as evolutionary theory promoted debates among scientists over meaning and purpose in life, Darby’s premillennial eschatology, which encouraged a systematic interpretation of the Bible, provided conservative evangelicals in the United States with answers to the same questions that scientists were asking in the wake of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The roots of modern scientific and religious American apocalypticism are in this period of scientific revolution and Protestant Christian realignment.

Chapter 2

Race, Technology, and the Apocalypse

Darwin changed the way humans thought of themselves in the same era that the word “technology” took on a new meaning. Until World War I, most Americans were not familiar with the term “technology” as we use it—​­to mean the mechanical objects produced by scientific knowledge and engineering techniques.1 In an 1864 plan for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the first notable uses of that term in the United States, its founders described the new school as dedicated to “industrial science,” a place they hoped would spread “the elevating influences of a generous scientific culture.”2 Technology came to be seen as inseparable from scientific progress. At the turn of the twentieth century, some Westerners asked whether humans were all that special and whether the technology transforming their lives might be the means by which the human species, among so many others, might become extinct. Between religion and science, which would provide the answers to these existential questions? That MIT’s founders were able to write in such glowing phrases in the midst of the world’s first technological war—​­the Civil War—​­is a tribute to how the nation outside of the South experienced that conflict. The postmillennialism of Christians outside the Confederacy meant that the repeating carbines and the Gatling guns that generated hundreds of deaths every day of the war were merely tools for a national purification on the eve of the millennium.3 In the long run, however, postmillennialism would not endure, and after the Southern adoption of dispensational premillennialism, pessimism about human nature would be more influential on futurist fantasies than the millennial hopes of prior generations of Americans.

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The reaction of white Southerners to the results of the Civil War presaged the emergence of scientific apocalypticism, based on evolutionary racism, by the late nineteenth century. Reconstruction under Congress briefly saw black Southerners voting and running for office; African Americans in the South shared the millennial perspective of Northerners until virulent and violent racism shattered the promise of a better life.4 White Southerners never wavered in their conviction that theirs had been the true holy war, even in defeat. They predicted that black Southerners would simply become extinct, unable to handle life without the civilizing bonds of slavery, especially when competing against white Southerners.5 When that prophecy failed, white Southerners then recast the Civil War as a “lost cause”—​­worthy but doomed. In this tale, white Southerners fought for states’ rights, not for slavery, and the war was a tragic disagreement between brothers. “Lost Cause” ideology brokered reconciliation between white Northerners and white Southerners at the cost of black civil rights. D. W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) enshrined that understanding in a celebrated film that portrayed black politicians and soldiers as threatening to white civilization. It was a vision that resonated with Western and Northern urbanites gripped by xenophobia during the second wave of immigration in 1880–­1917. Evolutionary theory, especially in its neo-­Lamarckian form, seemed to verify white Western superiority, but Western fears about nonwhite nations overtaking them also revealed their inner conflict: what if sheer numbers took away that presumed advantage?6 As the United States rapidly industrialized, some observers cast that too as evidence of evolutionary success.7 At the turn of the twentieth century, President Theodore Roosevelt warned Americans that weakness could also come from within, from a failure to live “the strenuous life.”8 In that case, what if technology turned against its creators?9 Even still Americans rushed headlong into the technological age, enjoying a flurry of inventions that changed how ordinary people lived: the telegraph, the telephone, the light bulb, and the automobile. It was an age when Westerners saw in science the potential to answer all of life’s major questions and in technology the potential for a better world.10 Writers who expressed apprehension that such technological advances might prove to be perilous retained their faith in science because, as the historian James Gilbert explains, science had the best “chance, as many Americans believed, for governing the racing engine of technology and braking the excessive speed of industrial change.”11 While those initially questioning the link between

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technology and progress tended to be British or European, some Americans also articulated unease over technological developments. That American inventors and entrepreneurs were responsible for introducing many of these technological changes seemed to indicate that Americans might also be culpable for any disasters. The earliest instances of scientific apocalyptic fiction came from British and European writers; the majority expressed the conviction that the West represented the apex of civilization even as they fretted over humanity’s future. As the United States became more powerful, militarily and economically, the amount of scientific apocalypticism issuing from American writers also grew. A relationship between apocalyptic beliefs and hegemonic world power is evident in scientific apocalypticism but not in dispensational premillennialism; Americans were writing an abundance of premillennial apocalyptic fiction and nonfiction by the late nineteenth century, and it would be hard to argue that any other Western nation, including England, produced more. The early scientific apocalyptic fears about technology, racial displacement, and natural disasters were anxieties that were common to most Western countries but that may have seemed more relevant to Britons as they worried about maintaining their country’s ascendancy.12 Thomas Disch, a science fiction writer who writes on the history of the genre, may be a bit bombastic in The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (1998) when he addresses the early British dominance of science fiction, contending that “Americans were too busy building the future to bother imagining it.”13 Nevertheless, the increasing anxiety over technology that appeared in the late nineteenth century was sometimes aimed at Americans. The French writer Jules Verne, father of the “scientific romance” (or science fiction in contemporary language), alluded to such worries in at least two of his novels.14 Verne started his career as a playwright who also penned short stories and articles on scientific themes. His first success—​­Five Weeks in a Balloon—​­came in 1863 and was a best-­selling novel in France and around the world. In this novel, Verne illustrates how Americans were perceived to be particularly adept, albeit reckless, at mechanical invention. One of the primary characters suggests that American mechanical genius could be humanity’s undoing. While passing over the United States in a hot air balloon, he muses that “by dint of inventing machinery, men will end in being eaten up by it! I have always fancied that the end of the earth will be when some

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enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up our Globe!” And, as one of his companions quips, the Americans “are great boiler-­makers!”15 Around the World in 80 Days (1873) reiterates this idea of Americans as reckless mechanics. As the main characters attempt to traverse the globe in mere months, they find various obstacles in their way. For instance, when a broken bridge threatens to slow their progress, an engineer proposes to cross it by going really fast: “He told stories about engineers leaping their trains over rivers without bridges, by putting on full steam.” One character, Passepartout, “thought the experiment proposed a little too American.”16 Later in the novel, as the main characters are on a steamer from Singapore to Hong Kong, Passepartout, upon inspecting the engine, declares, “ ‘The valves are not sufficiently charged!’ . . . ​‘We are not going. Oh, these English! If this was an American craft, we should blow up, perhaps, but we should at all events go faster!’ ”17 In contrast to the snark of Verne’s characters, a dime novel published in the United States called The Steam Man of the Prairies in 1868 exemplifies the positive feelings Americans themselves had toward industrialization. The author, Edward Ellis, was a prolific writer whose hundreds of books include boys’ adventures, broad histories, and textbooks. The plucky hero of The Steam Man is a boy who builds a mechanical man powered by a steam engine to which he attaches a wagon and uses to tour the West, hunting buffalo and scaring Native Americans. More boys’ adventure novel than science fiction, Ellis’s book depicts the steam man as being a triumph of the inventiveness of one average American boy from St. Louis. The narrator describes the steam man without a hint of trepidation: “It worked splendidly. The black smoke puffed rapidly from the top of the hat, and the machinery worked so smoothly that there was scarcely a click heard. The huge spiked feet came lightly to the ground, and were lifted but a short distance from it, and their long sweep and rapid movement showed unmistakably that the steam man was going at a pace which might well defy anything that had yet swept the prairies.”18 The ingenuity of the steam man was part and parcel of an optimism that predicted science would soon discover proof of life after death.19 The technological prowess of the West proved to many Westerners that less technological societies, such as the American Indians in the United States, were inferior.20 It was the young boy’s innate qualities that imparted the mechanical genius that allowed him to bully Native Americans. But just as fears over the destructive potential of technology accompanied technological advancement, so did

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worries over the future of Western civilization accompany brash imperialism and social Darwinism. In the late nineteenth century, the murky terminology of race intertwined with the scientific terminology of species to create an apocalyptic based on the theory of natural selection. Novelists, speculating on the implications of natural selection for human history, wrote stories of racial or species displacement. The scientific apocalyptic as articulated by these writers was relatively narrow: they told of the discovery of “lost races” that threatened the existence of Homo sapiens, expressed fear of the “yellow peril,” and relayed the message that Western civilization was doomed. Prior to World War II, scientific apocalyptic works of nonfiction were not as common as similar works of fiction. After Romantic-­era poets turned their attention away from the “last man” theme, fictional explorations of a naturalistic end of the world next popped up in utopian/dystopian stories and science fiction.21 In these early forms of speculative literature, the first examples of scientific apocalypticism are found. Racism, imperialism, and Darwinism combined to create an apocalyptic form that did not strictly describe “the end of the world.”22 Darwinism seemed to explain the economic and military power of the West, but those who expressed doubts about Western primacy also found evidence in one interpretation of natural selection that another race might replace Anglo-­ Saxons. To Americans who identified themselves as Anglo-­Saxons, the threat of replacement felt no less apocalyptic simply because it did not involve the destruction of all of humanity, evinced in the language of “yellow peril.” The apocalyptic dimension of natural selection meant not only that one race might supplant another but also that a sentient species outside of Homo sapiens, destined for greatness, might conquer humans.23 An Englishman first considered this possibility in 1871. Edward Bulwer-­ Lytton published The Coming Race, which explored the idea of “racial displacement” that many believed was contained in Darwin’s theory.24 The Coming Race had an American narrator who describes the United States as “that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its model and tremblingly foresees its doom.”25 Bulwer-­Lytton meant to satirize current trends, including Darwinism, materialism, and women’s rights.26 The story mocked American optimism about the future, suggesting Western civilization is neither as strong nor as enduring as the narrator seems to believe. The narrator speaks of the “magnificent future that smiled upon mankind—​­when the flag of freedom should float over an entire continent, and two hundred

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millions of intelligent citizens, accustomed from infancy to the daily use of revolvers, should supply to a cowering universe the doctrine of the Patriot Monroe.”27 The narrator’s discovery of a heretofore-­unknown society of humans who have evolved very different physical abilities (due to their mastery of a power akin to electricity called “Vril”) shakes his faith in American progress. The finding inspires a fantasy in which the narrator becomes absolute ruler of the “Vril-­ya” (his name for the subterranean peoples he discovered), and he attempts to bring the “blessings” of American institutions to the people of the underworld.28 Despite the narrator’s origins from what he felt was the most advanced civilization on Earth, he becomes convinced that the Vril-­ya are superior in power and would eventually climb to the surface to “destroy and replace our existent varieties of man.”29 Though he escapes from the Vril-­ya and returns to the surface, the book ends ominously, suggesting that it is only a matter of time before the Vril-­ya ascend to the surface and conquer the world. Perhaps tellingly, the narrator refers to the Vril-­ya not as another species, but as another race. The narrator’s encounter with this powerful “race” of human beings suggested the apocalyptic possibilities of Darwin’s theory. Westerners, in spite of their conviction of their own superiority, could be displaced as indifferently as they had dislodged others in ascending the evolutionary ladder. Another possible development Bulwer-­Lytton may have been hinting at was the future of Westerners as an unrecognizable species, if it continued down the path of modernization. While Bulwer-­Lytton demonstrated the anxieties attendant with Darwin’s theory of natural selection, other novelists and writers with similar anxieties did not resort to imagining a fictional race of beings conquering Western society. As immigration from China increased, some white Americans became persuaded that Western civilization was under siege from Asia. Americans blamed immigrants from Japan and China for outbreaks of plague in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and a discourse surrounding the eradication of Japanese beetles migrating into American agriculture during the 1920s helped further dehumanize the Japanese.30 Americans were not alone in their racist alarm; Europeans, from their experience colonizing China and India and contending with Japan’s growing imperialist ambitions by the late nineteenth century, also believed that Asia endangered Western civilization.31 The so-­called yellow peril of the Chinese (and, later, the Japanese) had

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apocalyptic dimensions, and its proponents used explicit evolutionary language to describe it. The American author Jack London wrote in a 1904 essay that Anglo-­Saxons had essential characteristics that other races could never hope to attain: “soul stuff . . . ​is the product of an evolution, which goes back to the raw beginnings of the race. Our soul stuff is not a coin to be pocketed by the first chance comer. The Japanese cannot pocket it any more than he can thrill to short Saxon words or we can thrill to Chinese hieroglyphics.”32 Even if Anglo-­Saxons had special “soul stuff,” the Chinese and Japanese could still find another evolutionary advantage and conquer the world through their overwhelming numbers. Pierton W. Dooner, an Arizona newspaper editor, wrote The Last Days of the Republic in 1880, two years before Congress passed a ban on Chinese immigration, in order to demonstrate how Asia threatened to overwhelm United States. Dooner is up-­front about his belief in Anglo-­Saxon supremacy. The eventual war that breaks out between the Chinese and the Americans has to be apocalyptic because, in Dooner’s conception, the Americans were “a people unlike the Asiatics in everything; a people who, having never felt the arm of despotism, would submit to nothing in the way of oppression or political injustice for any considerable length of time.”33 The Americans, on the other hand, learn quickly that though they had considered the Chinese as beneath them, the Chinese are excellent soldiers, “executing all the evolutions of a difficult military drill and the manual of arms with an ease and regularity unsurpassed by even a body of veteran soldiers.”34 Dooner expresses his dismay at the situation of American politics in 1880, suggesting that by allowing Chinese immigration and valuing commercial interests above all else, the American government allowed a “fifth column” inside its borders, unwittingly aiding the destruction of the United States.35 In the end, the Chinese replace Anglo-­Saxons as the dominant power on Earth. The U.S. defeat occurs in a maudlin passage: “as she sank, engulfed, she carried with her the prestige of a race; for in America the representatives of the one race of man, which in its relation to the family of men, had borne upon its crest the emblem of sovereign power since the dawn of history, saw now the ancestral diadem plucked from its proud repose, to shed its luster upon an alien crown.”36 level Americans tended to view the “yellow peril” with apocalyptic-­ ­anxiety—​­it meant no less than the end of modern civilization. However, in regard to technological growth, Americans on the whole remained optimistic prior to World War II in comparison to the British and Europeans. One

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notable exception was the American satirist and novelist Mark Twain, who expressed his doubts about modern industrial life in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). Hank Morgan, the “Connecticut Yankee,” is the champion of modern industrial America. He sees himself cut from the same cloth as those he terms the “creators of this world—​­after God—​­Gutenberg, Watt, Arkwright, Whitney, Morse, Stephenson, Bell.”37 His first-­person tale of the events that transpire upon his mysterious transportation from Connecticut to sixth-­century England reveals his unquestioning acceptance of nineteenth-­century American capitalism and technology. Morgan, who had worked in a munitions factory where he “learned to make everything: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-­saving machinery,”38 introduces that same technology to medieval England, seeing his magical teleportation as an opportunity to form the ultimate modern society under his leadership. Morgan is proud of the new society he creates in old England: “Slavery was dead and gone; all men were equal before the law; taxation had been equalized. The telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the typewriter, the sewing machine and all the thousand willing and handy servants of steam and electricity were working their way into favor.”39 But despite Morgan’s attempts to undermine the social structure of medieval England, attacking the clergy (for its superstition) as well as the aristocracy and the monarchy (for their undeserved privilege), the people he saw as no more than savages resist him. At the end of the novel, he barricades himself in his old headquarters at Camelot with a loyal follower and powerful guns so he can destroy “civilization.”40 And in fact, Morgan does not merely destroy his factories and defend himself against the angry knights; he extinguishes them. His description of the battle is apocalyptic in its dimensions: “The thirteen gatlings began to vomit death into the fated ten thousand. . . . ​Within ten short minutes after we had opened fire, armed resistance was totally annihilated. . . . ​Twenty-­five thousand men lay dead around us.”41 Though Twain appeared to subscribe to Darwinism, unlike many of his contemporaries in the United States, he had little faith that evolution necessarily meant human progress. Hank Morgan laments at one point that “all that is original in us, and therefore fairly creditable or discreditable to us, can be covered up and hidden by the point of a cambric needle, all the rest being atoms contributed by, and inherited from, a procession of ancestors that stretches back a billion years to the Adam-­clam or grasshopper or monkey from whom our race has been so tediously and ostentatiously and unprofitably developed.”42

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According to Twain’s novel, capitalism and technology do not make better humans, and, indeed, they could prove to be the undoing of civilization. Connecticut Yankee was an early American example of the types of fears—​­human unimportance in the face of long evolutionary history and the potential for technological disasters—​­that would come to characterize much scientific apocalypticism after World War II. Some American writers, such as the American Populist Ignatius Donnelly, thought the apparent end of the world could bring about a utopia, an idea that mirrored the premillennialist belief in a final judgment and destruction of the world followed by a millennium of peace.43 Donnelly was among a minority of Americans who did not see unending progress in America’s future. Immigration, urbanization, and the rise of corporations and factories seemed to be undermining the American way of life during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Industrial capitalism, according to American Populists, sought to dislodge rural, small-­town America founded on traditional values, replacing it with impersonal relationships with large corporate monopolies bent on profit and privileges for elites.44 Donnelly was part of the Populist movement of the 1890s that grew out of the grassroots action of American farmers in the previous decade. In the South, sharecropping had trapped black and white small farmers in a cycle of debt and dependence on large landowners. Railroads in the West frustrated farmers, who had no control over how much it cost to bring their crops to market. Collective action promised to bring financial relief, but as farmers in the West and South joined up, they set their sights on a thorough reworking of American society by nationalizing the railroads and other utilities, a progressive tax, and term limits for the highest offices in the land. Donnelly’s 1890 book Caesar’s Column anticipates the revolutionary platform that he wrote for the Populist Party two years later. The fictional work depicted an American society so riddled with corruption that it begged for destruction.45 The book references the “yellow peril” and is anti-­Semitic as Jews make up a large part of the ruling oligarchy that has so little regard for the underclass.46 Nevertheless, racial displacement is only a minor part of the novel. The utter destruction of civilization to root out the corruption of the ruling class is the main action of the novel. God has a firm place in this novel even as the characters decide to bring about an apocalypse, but God’s plan for the world limits their actions. The narrator Gabriel believes that “while God permits man to wreck himself, he denies him the power to destroy the world,” a belief that premillennialists would come to endorse in the twentieth

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century.47 Theism did not, however, preclude evolutionary belief, and Gabriel asserts that man’s evolution from “brute” to “savage” to civilized proves that God was at work in the development of humanity.48 Gabriel finds hope in evolution, saying, “Even though civilization should commit suicide, the earth would still remain—​­and with it some remnant of mankind; and out of the uniformity of universal misery a race might again arise worthy of the splendid heritage God has bestowed upon us.”49 The revolution that results from the masses’ discontent with the Oligarchy has apocalyptic dimensions—​­a war with airships that drop bombs and rids the Earth of three-­fourths of its population; so destructive is the war that the narrator says, “It was the very efflorescence of the art of war—​­the culmination of the evolution of destruction—​­the perfect flower of ten thousand years of battle and blood.”50 Maximilian tells his comrades that it was “God’s way of wiping off the blackboard.”51 Though not strictly a work of scientific apocalypticism because of its concentration on socialism, Donnelly’s work is remarkable in combining fears over technology (in the depiction of airships helping conduct the war) with worries about racial displacement. Caesar’s Column is also noteworthy for presenting the idea that humans could bring about an apocalypse to allow humans to start over, much like the Flood did in the biblical book of Genesis. The theme of humans purposefully causing that amount of destruction would recur in the scientific apocalyptic. These initial works of the scientific apocalyptic emphasized racial displacement and limited technological destruction. By the end of the nineteenth century, these hints of eschatology became fully vocalized apocalypses from a natural disaster, without any aid from God. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, advancements in cosmology led scientists to theorize about the probable fates of the Earth, sun, and universe. As human time encompassed more space, science writers distinguished between the end of the world as in the end of the human species and the end of the world as in the destruction of the Earth. The incidence of one did not necessarily mean the occurrence of the other, and both might happen at the same time. With apocalyptic anxiety including the fate of the entire world, writers began to grasp the idea of a “human community.” Not even Darwinism accomplished that; too easily was the struggle of an individual species mapped onto a supposed struggle between races. That all of humanity might be wiped out through a natural occurrence or because of human malfeasance was an intellectual watershed in recognizing the connectedness of all humans.

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New understandings in cosmology helped develop that awareness. Though Darwin’s opponent, William Thomson, had helped discourage support for natural selection for religious reasons, he had casually proposed a naturalistic ending for the world in 1852 with the observation that the dissipation of energy means the Earth would be cold and uninhabitable at some future point. The world might exist for a long time, ending only when the sun failed to provide the necessary heat for life. Darwin found this image unsettling, but Thomson did not think that cold ending would ever happen.52 Thomson and his followers used thermodynamics to push against Darwin’s naturalistic account of how humans originated.53 Where Thomson refused to go, others also hesitated to tread. Evolution and entropy dually posed a new universe bounded in time during which irreversible processes produced life, planetary bodies, and the stars. Reversibility had been the hallmark of Newton’s mechanical universe, and the finality of extinction, whether solar or species, was a direct blow to that system.54 The radical aspects of entropy did not immediately present themselves. Entropy resonated with Victorian Christian ideas about the inevitability of decay and the need for moral progress. Figures ranging from Frederick Engels, the late nineteenth-­century German philosopher, and John Tyndall, a physicist contemporary with Thomson, were reluctant to accept the second law of thermodynamics, seeing it as too bound up with creationism and conservative values.55 Tyndall, though a physicist, was so uncomfortable with the second law’s potential for confirming creationist accounts of the world that he avoided publishing or speaking publicly about the topic. He also thought about ways that heat could be restored to the sun, as through planetary collisions.56 Such resistance to the second law among Western materialists endured well into the twentieth century, as seen in the writings of Svante Arrhenius in the 1910s and J. B. S. Haldane in the 1930s.57 It was only when applied to the question of English resources that ripples of a negative and materialistic reading of entropy first surfaced.58 A British philosopher, William Stanley Jevons, evoked the heat death when he asked readers to imagine the coal reserves of England as empty as a cleaned coal bin. The hearths of England, when that day comes, “will be then suddenly extinguished, and cold and darkness will be left to reign over a depopulated country.”59 But Jevons only drew that apocalyptic picture to provoke a controversy he could then resolve. Even when England’s coal supply is exhausted, as Jevons relates, England will be able to obtain coal from more resource-­rich

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countries like the United States. He saw no need to be pessimistic, because England had managed to find fuel all over the world and used it to spread civilization.60 While Jevons merely flirted with apocalypticism, other Victorians embraced the idea of entropy as metaphor for decline. Charles Dickens played with entropic themes in novels like Little Dorrit (1857) to conjure a vision of Britain in decline.61 Robert Louis Stevenson, a popular novelist at the time, used his engineering background to explore irreversibility as an inherent quality of energy processes, represented in the details surrounding the transformation of Jekyll into Hyde in his famous 1886 book.62 The American historian Henry Adams, who trained in England, detected a “universal truth” in entropy that “order was the dream of man.”63 For him, the second law was a general truth that could explain human history. Though entropy as metaphor captivated Victorians, it made literal appearances in British and European speculative fiction as well. The founder of the British scientific romance, H. G. Wells, illustrated the heat death of the universe in an 1893 essay of “the last men” living deep underground as Earth grows colder and colder.64 Similarly, his novel The Time Machine in 1895 described a chilly end for the world. The time traveler of the novel goes thousands of millions of years into the future where he discovers the sun has become large and red, and the Earth’s rotation has ended.65 He travels forward thirty million more years to find the Earth cold and dark; the sun has died. The silence is horrifying: “All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives—​­all that was over.”66 Perhaps because it did not present an imminent threat, the heat death of the universe didn’t capture the Western apocalyptic imagination to the extent that species replacement did. Darwinism may have inspired the scientific apocalyptic because it could cut both ways. There was no obvious way out of entropy without God. Natural selection, however, held out the hope that Westerners could overcome “races” or even aliens that posed a challenge. After 1945, the prospects of humankind surviving long enough to freeze to death were grim, but species replacement remained a powerful apocalyptic concept. The long journey of the time machine indicated how insignificant a single human’s life is, given the vast time scale involved. The invocation of cosmological time showed how Wells was a master of raising a reader’s apocalyptic expectations only to dash them. The heat death was so far in the future that it

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hardly presented an immediate threat. However chilling his description of the end of the world, Wells allowed his time traveler to return home in comfort. Wells did tackle an imminent End through cosmology in “The Star” (1897). The story centers on humans who experience the passage of a rogue planet through the solar system. Its trajectory unexpectedly takes it so close to Earth that earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions roil the surface. Though the reader is denied a fiery ending, Wells uses the ending to make another point about human insignificance, this time given the expanse of space: from the perspective of Mars, hardly anything seemed to have happened.67 In 1894, Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer, summoned immense time spans and stretches of space in Omega: The Last Days of the World. Omega exploited the apocalyptic aspects of entropy, but Flammarion was unable to present such a bleak future without reservation. A Catholic who had lost his faith, Flammarion became a spiritualist who believed that science and metaphysics could be joined; he was not unique in this interest, as Western contemporaries like the American philosopher William James and the English novelist Arthur Conan Doyle also explored ideas such as psychic and postdeath communication during the same time period. Flammarion portrays the End as occurring ten million years into the future through the disappearance of water and the advance of cold until only two survivors remain. In a supernatural ending, the two last humans, Omegar and Eva, are magically transported to Jupiter (where other humans before them had migrated) to live out their lives. In his epilogue, Flammarion discusses the end of the solar system with the death of the sun, “and one after another the stars, each one of which is a sun, a solar system, shared the same fate; yet the universe continued to exist as it does today.”68 As an astronomer, Flammarion may have found it easier than others to differentiate among the ends of Earth, humanity, and other worlds, but he still couldn’t abide the perishing of humanity. He concocted a scheme for its continuing existence: Omega’s narrator notes, “The conscious existence of mankind had attained an ideal state. Mankind had passed by transmigration through the worlds to a new life with God, and freed from the burden of matter, soared with a progress in endless light.”69 Just as scientists like Flammarion broadened their concerns about the future of humanity to consider how a natural event could affect the entire planet, so did science inspire writers to turn their attention to the universe at large. In the late nineteenth century, observations of Mars and its canals, which were first spied by an Italian priest in 1876, inspired ruminations on

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the possibility of life on other planets. Wells in The War of the Worlds was one of the first novelists to grapple with the eschatological possibilities of first contact. Wells’s instructor at the Normal School of Science in London during the 1880s was T. H. Huxley (Darwin’s so-­called bulldog), and Huxley no doubt instructed Wells in evolutionary theory.70 Wells used the lessons he learned in The War of the Worlds (1898). The Martians have an advantage over humans, having evolved streamlined bodies and developed powerful weapons. When he leaves an inn that had served as his refuge from the aliens, the narrator compares himself to “a rat leaving its hiding place—​­a creature scarcely larger, an inferior animal, a thing that for any passing whim of our masters might be hunted and killed. Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God.”71 God has no place in this apocalypse, and bacteria defeat the aliens: “But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle. . . . ​But there are no bacteria in Mars.”72 Though humanity survives this attack, the narrator muses on the inevitable end of the world, and the knowledge of life on other planets allows him to distinguish between the end of the Earth and the end of humanity: “when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet within its toils.”73 An American, seemingly unsatisfied with the ambivalent ending of Wells’s War of the Worlds—​­after all, the Martians could find a way to resist the bacteria and return—​­wrote an “unauthorized” sequel, published also in 1898. In Garrett P. Serviss’s work, the Americans prove to be the salvation of mankind as Thomas Edison discovers how to duplicate the power of the Martians and builds a spaceship. The world, having come together in the wake of the Martian attack, mounts an assault against the Martians on their home world. In Serviss’s book, the Martians are an “older” species than humans, living on “an aged and decrepit world,” and thus have “the advantage of ages of evolution, which for us [humans] are yet in the future.”74 Serviss, unlike Wells, used religious imagery to describe the crisis on Earth. Upon seeing a Martian, the narrator suggests that “the sensations of one who had stood face to face with Satan, when he was driven from the battlements of heaven by the words of his fellow archangels, and had beheld him transformed from Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, into the Prince of Night and Hell, might now have been unlike those which we now experienced.”75 The

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expedition succeeds in routing the Martians, creating a great flood that drowns most of the enemy. However blustering Serviss’s nationalism might have been, his conviction that humanity’s salvation lay with God-­blessed American ingenuity was hardly unusual, as the example of Bulwer-­Lytton’s 1871 book shows. Serviss, an astronomer and popular science writer, showcases American optimism about science and technology in this era. Serviss’s book is extraordinary in envisioning humanity itself creating an apocalypse on another world, perhaps revealing how effortless it was for an American in 1898, living in a country on the cusp of global power, to be optimistic about humanity’s future. By the time of Serviss’s book, English observers agreed that U.S. destiny was to overtake its once mother country, England. If British and European observers found American culture crude and its ladies lacking in physical strength and attractiveness as Sir Lepel Griffin (a colonial administrator) opined in 1884, they envied American economic and technological success by the end of the nineteenth century.76 William Thomas Stead, a journalist and an Americanophile, told Britons in 1901 they had a choice “to merge the existence of the British Empire in the United States of the English-­speaking World . . . ​[or accept] our reduction to the status of an English-­speaking Belgium.”77 Before the British had to bear that burden, however, fiction writers in the West conjectured that humanity might do something to wipe itself out. The possibilities for a human-­caused end of the world appeared numerous. For instance, the English writer John Mills in his 1897 story, “The Aerial Brick Field,” imagined an inventor and entrepreneur finding a way to package part of the atmosphere into a solid brick. The inventor eventually realizes that his actions are causing destructive floods and concludes, “Had I continued making the bricks on the scale I planned, you will readily see that in no great length of time the air would have become so thin that no one could have breathed with comfort, and thus the human race would have been slowly exterminated.”78 Other scientists suggested that dependence on natural resources might lead to humanity’s doom. After the deadly earthquake along the New Madrid fault in Missouri in 1895, some theorized that the extraction of minerals had caused it.79 This prompted dismay that the removal of resources like oil from the Earth might destabilize the crust and cause it to collapse.80 In 1897,

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William Thomson returned to apocalyptic speculation when he gave a scientific paper at a Toronto conference in which he suggested that it was possible to burn enough coal to deplete all of the oxygen in the atmosphere within four hundred to five hundred years.81 Of course that would only happen if humans didn’t run out of coal first. Though Jevons hadn’t thought that an impending threat, another English writer, George C. Wallis, wrote a story in 1901 titled “The Last Days of Earth,” which visualizes the end of the world through a slow freezing. The Earth’s resources, which could have permitted humanity to continue its existence, have all been depleted: “Coal had long since been exhausted, along with peat and wood and all inflammable oils and gases; no turbine could work from frozen seas, no air wheels revolve in an atmosphere but slightly stirred by a faded sun.”82 Some humans flee to other planets, leaving a dead Earth but preserving a remnant of humanity.83 This plotline becomes commonplace in the twentieth-­century American scientific apocalyptic. Not only the British speculated along these lines. During the same time period, the Serbian-­born American inventor Nikola Tesla offered novel theories as to how the world could end accidentally as well as purposefully. He suggested that the atmosphere could catch fire: “And who can tell with certitude that periodical cessations of organic life on the globe might not be caused by ignition of the air and destruction of its life-­sustaining qualities, accidentally or as a consequence of some accumulative change?”84 Tesla, whose reputation as a mad scientist has grown throughout the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries (some blame an experiment of his for the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia), claimed that he could destroy the Earth on his own.85 He reportedly said he could cleave the Earth in two if he could only “obtain perfect mechanical resonance of the earth” by sending vibrations into the ground and accelerating them through dynamite.86 The modern American attribution of an apocalyptic ability to Tesla illustrates both the fear and awe that would later develop in the United States regarding scientific attempts to control nature, as with the bomb.87 Tesla’s boasting had more to do with mastering nature than with generating a doomsday. In general, Americans were not quite ready to engage in the kind of apocalyptic speculation that the British enjoyed, even by the turn of the century. John Ames Mitchell, an editor at Life, offered The Last American (1902) as a vision of the end of the United States by 1990 due to internal corruption in the Donnelly mold. A Persian on an archaeological expedition to the old United States, where no humans any longer live, observes, “They were

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a sharp, restless, quick-­witted, greedy race, given body and soul to the gathering of riches. Their chiefest passion was to buy and sell.”88 Unlike Donnelly, however, Mitchell was much more pessimistic; the avarice of the “Mehrikans” results in the complete eradication of the nation: “And their greed, at last, resulted in this war. By means of one-­sided laws of their own making they secured themselves a lion’s share of all profits from the world’s commerce. This checked the prosperity of other nations, until at last the leading powers of Europe combined in self-­defence against this all-­absorbing greed.”89 Despite the moral misgivings of Mitchell, Nathaniel Shaler, an American geologist at Harvard from 1868 until 1906, claimed that science could allow humanity to escape possible threats to its existence. His nonfiction work Man and the Earth (1905) was a contemplation of the future of natural resources. He believed that mankind “is by his intellectual quality exempted from most of the agents that destroy organic groups.”90 While natural resources might be in danger of exhaustion in the future, Shaler was confident that science would be able to revitalize the fertility of worn-­out soil and be able to tap into other sources of energy like wind and water when coal and oil are exhausted.91 Addressing the growing fears of environmental degradation that proto-­ environmentalists like John Muir disseminated, Shaler asserted that nations would embrace the idea of preserving areas of their countryside.92 There were limits to his concern for nature, however. As a neo-­Lamarckian evolutionist, he admitted that the progress of humanity might result in the extinction of other species.93 Still, Shaler did not think this should deter humanity from ascending to its destiny, although he argued that humans should strive to preserve some mammals from extinction for scientific study.94 Man and the Earth’s survey of the possible obstacles to human growth concluded with this statement: “There is no reason to forecast the end of this new order until the sun goes out, or the under-­earth ceases to renew to the theatre of life.” And that, according to Shaler, is “as remote in the future as the dawn of life is in the past.”95 Like Shaler most Americans continued to express faith that science would solve any emerging problems through World War I. In the two decades before the Great War, Progressive reformers in the United States undertook a reordering of society based on the belief that science could address the ills resulting from rapid urbanization and industrialization. While fear of revolution from below, as Donnelly depicted, motivated some, most reformers were white, middle-­class Protestants who believed society could improve with the help of modern social science. On the state and federal level, Progressives

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pushed for wide-­ranging legislation from child labor laws to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration in 1906. Progressivism had a dark side: paternalistic ideas about racial uplift made reformers insensitive to the realities of life for immigrants and the poor. In the opening decades of the 1900s, a eugenics movement cropped up, and it lasted until World War II, with a majority of states passing compulsory sterilization laws aimed at people with disabilities, mental illness, and criminal records, which indirectly targeted minorities and the indigent.96 Sponsors of moral reforms like the “white slavery” law of 1910 and Prohibition in 1919 sought social control, betraying that hidden beneath the American faith in progress was the dread of usurpation. In contrast to Americans who still expressed faith in a technological future, British fiction writers only became more pessimistic as the science fiction writer and critic Brian Aldiss notes.97 England’s famous mystery writer Arthur Conan Doyle offered up a narrative of the entire end of the world in a 1913 novel. Flammarion had proposed in Omega that a comet passing close to the Earth might result in the death of humanity. This idea inspired Doyle’s The Poison Belt. Its plot concerns the Earth passing through the tail of a comet, resulting in everyone on Earth, except for a group of friends of an incredibly prescient professor, taking on the appearance of death. The group, having survived passing through the “poison belt” because of a supply of oxygen, emerges from Professor Challenger’s house and believes that everyone else has died. Though the death of humanity has appeared to be painless—​­the poison has the effect of laughing gas—​­Challenger confesses to his friends that he “could sympathize with the person who took the view that the horror lay in the idea of surviving when all that is learned, famous, and exalted had passed away.”98 The professor is optimistic that evolution would ensure the survival of life on Earth, saying, in spite of the calamity, “you would see some few million years hence—​­a mere passing moment in the enormous flux of the ages—​­the whole world teeming once more with the animal and human life which will spring from this tiny root” (the amoeba).99 In the end, everyone wakes up, having experienced a condition the professor names “catalepsy.”100 Despite this exit strategy, this novel’s suggestion that a natural disaster could kill all of humanity—​­and at any moment—​­is an important development in how humanity saw nature, a theme that would come to dominate scientific apocalypticism during the last half of the twentieth century. The Poison Belt implied that nature could be indiscriminate in its effects. Aldiss, discussing Doyle’s ending, observes, “After the 1914–­18 war, such meek

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reversions to the prosaic would no longer be possible [for British writers].”101 Nevertheless, in comparison to American visions of the future at the same time, Doyle’s image of a comet potentially affecting everyone on Earth—​­with no recourse to technological solutions—​­is much bleaker and anticipates the direction that science fiction would take first in Great Britain and later in the United States after 1945. Aldiss says of the differences between the British scientific romance and American science fiction in the first half of the twentieth century that “much of the scientific romance had been sturdily dark in tone, just as a robust optimism dominated scientifiction [an American term used prior to “science fiction”]. In part, the marked contrast is attributable to different life-­experience in Britain and the United States.”102 World War I couldn’t even the differences between the tones of speculative fiction in the United States, Britain, and Europe. As Aldiss notes, Britain had many more casualties in World War I, and afterward “economic decline in the one country was counterbalanced by economic ascendancy in the other.”103 The late nineteenth-­century predictions of Verne and Bulwer-­Lytton of growing American power seemed to be coming true. The American recovery after the Civil War had misled world observers. If Europeans had paid closer attention to the casualties in the world’s first “great war fought with the tools and weapons of the Industrial Revolution,” maybe they would not have rushed enthusiastically to the front lines in 1914.104 World War I proved that modern technology had permanently changed the rules of warfare. The glory of heroism had always been available to soldiers who could prove themselves through hand-­to-­hand combat. Tanks, machine guns, poison gases, and submarines delivered mechanized, impersonal slaughter. At least ten million soldiers died, while over twenty million suffered battle wounds out of the sixty-­five million who fought in that war.105 President Woodrow Wilson hoped American participation would result in a “peace without victory,” but the carnage blinded the victors with rage, and they merely humored Wilson at Versailles in 1919. Even as Wilson failed to sell the American public on the League of ­Nations—​­the only part of his vision of a workable peace that survived ­negotiations—​­American science fiction writers retained their confidence in a U.S.-­led future after World War I. The American intellectual historian Henry F. May suggests that the war undermined the notion of progress, one of several dominating doctrines in the United States prior to the war, for American intellectuals.106 This decline of faith in progress occurred even before

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Americans entered the war in 1917, as they watched Europe descend into a madness that contradicted the progressive nature of history and the essentially good nature of man.107 Elsewhere, May notes of the postwar period that “American writers had often been discontented yet there was something new in the discontent of the twenties. There was more of it, it was louder and sometimes more weepingly expressed, and it was noticed, and sometimes resented, by the optimistic majority.”108 Intellectuals like H. L. Mencken and “Lost Generation” authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald represented the rejection of optimism that May describes. The American expatriate poet T. S. Eliot captured the tenor of the period in poems like “The Waste Land” (1922) and “The Hollow Men” (1925). The final line of the latter poem—​­“This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but with a whimper”—​­may have been an entropic-­inspired commentary on spiritual emptiness, but after 1945, Americans seized upon it as a prophecy of a society in existential crisis from man-­made perils. The postmillennialism that had allowed Americans to see the brutal conflagration of the Civil War through to its end was a casualty of natural selection as well as of German higher criticism of the Bible; after World Wars I and II, liberal Christians tended to be amillennialists, viewing the millennium as a spiritual truth rather than a literal one. American scientists in popular works on the future of humanity at times approached the pessimism of British and European scientists after World War I, even though, as Aldiss argues, science fiction in the United States remained more optimistic until the 1930s.109 The view that humanity could be displaced depending on the future course of its evolution was central to Stanton Arthur Coblentz’s work The Decline of Man (1925). A journalist and poet, Coblentz used evolutionary theory and language to describe what he saw as the social ills that would fell humankind. He alluded to the implications of Darwinism for the future of humanity, discussing the future in the context of the extinction of other species such as the dinosaurs. Examining the particular aspects of these species that may have made them “unfit” for survival, he concluded that the very same problems plague man.110 While Coblentz did mention environmental causes of extinction such as climate changes, deforestation, and epidemics, he did not discuss them in any detail. For Coblentz, the social situation of humans would determine whether they could respond and adapt to any such changes.111 He recommended birth control for the poorer classes and eugenics to direct the evolution of humanity so that it could survive.112 In his view, such remedies were

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vital because, unlike in the past, “it is no longer one race and one civilization that is threatened; it is all races and the civilization of all men.”113 His analysis was a mix of the racial fears of writers like Dooner and the worries over species displacement of Wells and Serviss, showing the connection between the two. The species, for Coblentz, could not survive without making sure “inferior” races did not reproduce. The implication of evolution that humanity could be replaced was in direct conflict with the Christian belief that humanity is central to God’s plan for the universe. After World War II, science fiction writers in particular would struggle with the idea that humans were not special. For instance, aliens would either resemble humans or reject Earthlings for being especially destructive toward their planet. In the 1920s, however, speculative fiction in the United States remained on the whole positive in nature, even as nonfiction writers like Coblentz were grappling with the negative ramifications of evolutionary theory. The man who coined the term science fiction, Hugo Gernsback, founded the first magazine dedicated to speculative fiction called Amazing Stories in 1926. Gernsback, an immigrant who came to the United States and became enamored of the American parable of the Edisonian inventor, wanted to publish fiction that would educate readers about science.114 Gernsback had so much faith in the ability of fiction to communicate scientific and technological ideas that he proposed “science fiction writers should be able to take out provisional patents on the devices they predicted in their stories.”115 Gernsback’s faith in technology led him to announce as editorial policy in 1931 that his magazine would not publish stories in which machines subjugated humans or in which scientists used their power to conquer the world.116 This policy implies that such stories were being written and submitted, though rejected by Gernsback, who had a powerful influence on the development of the science fiction genre in the United States. Despite Gernsback’s power, several works of fiction by both science fiction and mainstream writers appeared in the 1930s that projected current trends into the future and saw disaster. The Great Depression of the thirties may have tempered the optimism of science fiction of prior decades; these works resembled the scientific romances of H. G. Wells rather than the preceding American pulp science fiction. Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, writers who collaborated on six books, described a near encounter with human extinction in When Worlds Collide (1932). The League of the Last Days is the name of the group of scientists

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who determines that two planets are heading toward Earth and that the larger one will smash into Earth. The reaction of the characters to the threat of destruction is similar to the reaction of later atomic-­age characters to the threat of nuclear war. One wealthy character becomes enraptured at the news: “Delicious, isn’t it, to think of the end of all this? I feel stimulated, don’t you? All of it—​­going to pieces! I feel like saying, ‘Thank God!’ I was sick of it. Everyone was. Civilization’s a wretched parody. Evidently there was a just and judging God, after all.”117 Others also conclude that it must be the work of God, punishing humanity for its sins, or proof that humanity is so insignificant as to mean nothing in the larger natural processes of the world, themes that would recur in post-­1945 American science fiction.118 The Earth does not escape destruction, but humans discover that the second planet that passes very close to Earth is capable of supporting life, and a small remnant of humanity is sent there to carry on the species. The survivors decide that they must create a better civilization, saying, “When I recollect the filth of our cities, the greed of individuals and of nations, the savagery of war, the horrors of pauperism permitted to exist side by side with luxury and wealth, our selfishness, hates, diseases, filth—​­all the hideousness we called civilization—​­I cannot regret that the world which was afflicted by us is flying in fragments, utterly incapable of rehabilitation, about the sun.”119 In this way the End by natural means leads to a secular millennium, mirroring Christ’s Second Coming and the Final Judgment, followed by an era of peace.120 Not only science fiction authors expressed anxiety in the 1930s over what the future held. Stephen Vincent Benét, an American poet and author, published a short story in 1937 and a poem in 1938 that imagined wars so devastating that they decimate the human race. Benét’s short story “The Place of the Gods,” in the Saturday Evening Post (later republished as “By the Waters of Babylon”), presaged later apocalyptic fiction about humans eking out primitive existences after a nuclear war. The title of the story refers to the ruins of New York City, which the main character visits on a quest to prove his manhood. As he climbs through the remains of “the place of the gods,” he thinks to himself: “When gods war with gods, they use weapons we do not know. It was fire falling out of the sky and a mist that poisoned. It was the time of the Great Burning and the Destruction.”121 Though the story ends on an optimistic note with the narrator declaring, “We must build again,” Benét followed up the story with a poem the following year in the New Yorker.122 “Nightmare for Future Reference” looked forward to

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a third world war—​­“the one between us and them.”123 The poem describes the second year of the war when the birthrate decreases precipitously; as a result, women all over the world destroy the centers of government, and the war ends. Nevertheless, children do not start being born again, and the narrator in the poem concludes, “Well, we had a long run. That’s something.”124 Though not strictly grounded in science, Benét’s anticipation of wars so catastrophic captured the feeling that technology had advanced to the degree that humanity might not be able to withstand any further conflicts. While promoters of science in the United States only gradually questioned the idea of progress, at the core of Christian premillennialism was the idea that no real progress was possible because sin had doomed the world. In the late nineteenth century, the new notion of progress as the accumulation of knowledge sanctioned rapid urbanization and industrialization. Evangelicals not only rejected the possibility of social progress but also pegged limits to the knowledge humans could attain on their own. For disillusioned Americans who didn’t see a progressive narrative shaping their own lives, the alternative narrative of dispensational premillennialism may have made more sense.125 The growth of dispensationalism occurred during the same time that the white South returned to power after the war. The racist terror in scientific apocalypticism was largely lacking in Bible prophecy, but so was the participation of African American evangelicals. Premillennialism was attractive to black evangelicals in a way that differed from white evangelicals. Premillennialism fit easily into the tradition of seeing the end of racial injustice as part of God’s promise for a new world. Yet premillennialism could also excuse inaction on civil rights. That tension between anticipating the End while still working for betterment in the present was evident among white dispensationalists in other ways, but the white architects of dispensational premillennialism most often just ignored black evangelicals on theological matters.126 White Southerners and Midwesterners’ ecumenical approach to Bible prophecy may have helped heal the sectional divisions within Protestantism that the war created, but it did nothing to further racial relations. As white conservative evangelicals exchanged dispensationalist ideas in the late 1800s, they also debated whether science could inform their interpretations of Bible prophecy. A congregational minister, E. P. Goodwin, at an 1886 prophecy conference in Chicago, condemned modernists who tried to temper biblical accounts of miracles, creation, and the end of the world with scientific conclusions: “The only question for us is, what do these a­ uthorities—​ t­hese books of God’s revealed will teach? No matter whether we can

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understand or explain, or harmonize their teachings with our view of things or not. They give us what God says, and we believe them because of that, and not because of our ability to explain or expound them.”127 In addition to believing that the Bible should be read as a God-­inspired, infallible source, Goodwin criticized the notion that events in the Bible must be compatible with known physical laws: “With Him nothing is impossible, and the resources of omnipotence are as ample now as when they availed, however unphilosophically, or in contravention of natural law, to create a universe out of nothing, and make the original man out of the dust of the earth.”128 At the same conference, a Baptist minister, J. D. Herr, tackled the subject of a naturalistic end of the world, seizing on the uncertainty of how the world might end without God as a weakness: “Scientists have attempted to demonstrate the peculiar methods by which the present world is to be destroyed, together with the heavenly bodies beyond us. Yet no theory has ever been promulged receiving a hearty and unhesitating approval from intelligent thinkers. . . . ​In the Bible alone do we find the sure word of prophecy.”129 American premillennialists in the late nineteenth century, like Goodwin and Herr, were not interested in using scientific data to bolster the Bible; in their opinion, science was only being used to undermine it. This concern continued into the twentieth century, particularly when conservative evangelicals responded to modernist attacks on their theology. A Baptist minister, Isaac M. Haldeman, in a response to a 1917 essay by the modernist theologian (and Social Gospel promoter) Shailer Mathews, made it clear that a belief in premillennialism was essential for true-­believing Christians: “the Second Coming as recorded in the New Testament is so bound up with every fundamental doctrine, every sublime promise and practical exhortation, that it is impossible to read them in that connection without being impelled to accept and confess them.”130 James M. Gray at the Moody Bible Institute in 1922 responded to the liberal Presbyterian Harry Emerson Fosdick, a faculty member at Union Seminary, saying Fosdick’s “conception of his text is purely naturalistic, or rationalistic, if you prefer. The supernatural is excluded from his vision entirely.”131 In another essay, he criticized Fosdick for believing that “the revelation in the Bible must now be qualified by modern philosophy, by the evolutionary hypothesis, and by comparative religion.”132 In spite of the attempt of some conservatives to protect a literal interpretation of the Bible by eschewing the use of science, other evangelicals used scientific data to explain events in the Bible, especially when not responding to

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modernist theology.133 George M. Marsden observes that “dispensationalist thought was characterized by a dual emphasis on the supernatural and the scientific. Supernaturalism was a conscious and conspicuous organizing principle. Underlying dispensationalist thought, however, was an almost equally important set of ideas concerning how to look at things scientifically.”134 As Brendan Pietsch has shown, dispensationalists promoted the use of scientific techniques, such as taxonomy, to explain common objections to a literal and infallible interpretation of the Bible. One such criticism was that modern Christians should obey the Mosaic laws, even ones that counter modern culture, such as strictures against eating particular animals. Dispensationalists explained that in their interpretation, those laws applied only to the dispensation, or age, of ancient Israel. Christians lived in the age where God judged individuals according to their faith in Jesus Christ. (Historically Calvinists stressed the uncertainty of salvation, but in practicality American Calvinists have watered down the doctrine of predestination in favor of a more democratic vision of God.) This approach differed from what modernists were doing; far from using science to suggest that the Bible was untrue or metaphorical in parts, conservative evangelicals used science to show the Bible was consistent with itself as well as how an event that seemed unlikely could occur. Dispensationalism may have encouraged a scientific approach in particular, but other premillennial evangelicals were similarly open to scientific revelation. Seventh-­day Adventism (SDA), the evangelical denomination that grew out of the Baptist William Miller’s failed end-­of-­the-­world prophecies in 1843 and 1844, endorsed a premillennialist view of Bible prophecy, but one that held events predicted in the prophetic books of the Bible had been taking place since the first appearance of those prophecies. This historicist approach was more problematic than the futurist approach of dispensationalists, who located prophetic events as taking place right before the Second Coming. From the example of the historicist SDAs, dispensationalists learned the cautionary tale of setting specific dates.135 Dispensationalists could constantly shift their apocalyptic expectations according to current events, whereas the Adventist approach lent itself to the danger of failed prophecy by fixing prophetic events in the past. In practice Adventists and dispensationalists often sounded similar when it came to interpreting current events, but Adventist beliefs, like the necessity of a Saturday Sabbath, could be anti-­ecumenical in emphasis.136 The authority that the SDAs gave to the visions and writings of Ellen G. White, the nineteenth-­ century leader who had helped shape the denomination after the failed

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predictions of 1844, guaranteed that fundamentalists would view SDAs with suspicion.137 Fundamentalist Christians rejected modern-­day miracles and saw Christians who believed in prophetic visions, speaking in tongues, and faith healing as misguided at best and doing the work of Satan at worst. Adventism only remained a minority among both evangelicals and premillennialists with dispensationalism quickly outpacing it in popularity. Dispensationalists may have been unique in their fixation on engineering methods, but in general conservative evangelicals were less hostile to science than modernist theologians of the day charged. Asa Oscar Tait, a Seventh-­ day Adventist who edited the periodical Signs of the Times, took a position similar to other conservative evangelicals dismayed by the modernist trend among Protestants in Heralds of the Morning (1899): “It is the boast of men to-­day that ‘this age has outgrown many of the things taught in the Bible,’ and they call it an indication of great intellectual advancement.”138 Tait, like other SDAs, did not believe that God had blessed the United States as a country.139 God had chosen the church itself as His representative, and as early as the 1850s, SDAs even argued that God would destroy America because it was the beast described in Revelation 13.140 Likewise, Tait departed from many of his premillennialist colleagues in his willingness to see American industrial activity as displeasing to God. The way humans treated their environment indicated that the End was near: “The departing of earth’s vigor of youth, and the infirmities of age creeping over her, are thus pointed out as among the unmistakable tokens of her approaching dissolution.”141 In Tait’s account, humans had abused the Earth’s natural resources and were now even struggling to grow food.142 As a result, humanity would receive the punishment it deserved: “And our earth itself is groaning because of ‘the transgressions thereof ’ that is ‘heavy upon it.’ The pollutions of mankind, their transgression of physical law, their failure to observe the most thoroughly demonstrated principles of sanitary science, creates a soil for the growth of the germs of decay and pestilence.”143 Much more than other premillennialists of his time, Tait was willing to echo the beliefs of scientific apocalypticists that it was possible humans might not merely commit spiritual transgressions but crimes against the physical world as well. In the future, however, dispensationalists would adopt positions similar to Tait, first by incorporating scientific apocalypticism and then by becoming more ambivalent toward the United States. Other conservative evangelicals were no less friendly to science but used science in the older tradition of natural philosophy. Science could add to the

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understanding of the Bible, but its findings would never trump biblical scripture. The Methodist theologian Luther T. Townsend’s 1913 overview of the possible ends of the world exemplifies this disposition. He believed that science affirmed the biblical account of the End, saying “scientific specialists are no less pronounced in what they say of a destructive ending of physical things than are the utterances and warnings of Bible revelation.”144 Townsend concluded that between Peter’s and John’s prophecies (in 2 Peter and Revelation, respectively) the way the world will end, according to the Bible, is through fire: “the sun, moon, stars, the heavens and earth as now constituted shall be dissolved by some destructive agency and then vanish like smoke after a fire has done its work of devastation though the material may be transmuted into other forms.”145 In like manner, scientists not only predict that the natural world will come to an end at some point but also admit that the extinction of a species is final, Townsend asserted. On Townsend’s view, these were the various ways scientists had speculated the End might come: through drought; through freezing (because of the dying of the sun); through the Earth’s collision with a comet, another planet, or the sun; by passing through the tail of a comet (which could contaminate the Earth’s atmosphere); or through an explosion emanating from the interior of the Earth.146 When Townsend parsed through the various theories, he rejected all of the above except for the theories that contained an element of fire: “the coming deluge will be one of fire caused by cometic, planetic, or solar collisions, or by eruptions from the interior of the earth itself.”147 Science, used in that manner, strengthens biblical prophecy for Townsend: “prepare, for you are on the brink of a hell of fire, is the stern command that science is repeating.”148 Still, Townsend thought that God would use nature to bring about the End.149 Consistent with the attempt to reconcile the Bible with scientific conclusions, Townsend averred that “no scientist will question the statement that nature holds in reserve many intonings that could be heard world-­wide among the unfoldings of the last things and that under the command of God could thrill into ecstasy, or into terror every human being on earth and even start into motion every particle of matter builded into the earth.”150 Townsend wrote as the Christian fundamentalist movement consolidated around a series of essays published between 1910 and 1915, with American and British ministers as contributors. Amid fears of modernism gone amuck in American churches, the authors sought to emphasize the one principle they believed fundamental to Protestant Christianity: a literal and infallible Bible, which included literal interpretations of miracles, a Virgin birth,

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Christ’s death as a sacrifice that could grant salvation to those who accepted it, and finally Christ’s resurrection. The original fundamentalist movement was broad in its denominational scope, but increasingly the label itself became associated with conservative Baptists and Presbyterians in the United States in particular, though Methodists, Anglicans, and Lutherans helped write the movement’s foundational essays. Fundamentalism remained a fringe movement in Britain, and many conservative heirs to the Wesleyan tradition became involved in the emerging Pentecostal movement.151 In the United States, however, all remained under the banner of conservative evangelicalism, which tended to include dispensational premillennial beliefs. Cyrus Scofield helped unite these conservative evangelicals through his annotated version of the King James Bible, which was published in 1909 and revised in 1917. Scofield was a follower of James Brookes, whose St. Louis ministry inspired John Nelson Darby’s praise in 1872. The Scofield Bible’s annotations included commentary based on Darby’s system, and it was instrumental in spreading dispensationalist ideas. Most people who bought the Scofield Bible did so because of its reputation for instructing its readers in how to conduct their own textual analysis. The Scofield edition of the Bible likely helped spread dispensational premillennialism as well as the democratic approach toward analyzing biblical text.152 Scofield’s second edition in 1917 in particular stoked apocalyptic fervor in the United States. Events during the war dovetailed dispensationalist interpretations. The publication of the Balfour Declaration (1917), a letter written by Britain’s Foreign Secretary that said Britain wanted to see the formation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, excited dispensationalists who believed the Jewish people would reestablish Israel. The Russian Revolution prompted fears in the United States in general over the spread of radicalism, but for dispensationalists who identified Russia as Gog, the transition of Gog into a godless adversary merely energized apocalyptic expectation. By the time of the war, the British largely associated dispensational premillennialism with the Plymouth Brethren, whose separatism doomed dispensationalism to a minority viewpoint in the isles. The project of exploring Bible prophecy along Darby’s lines was left to Americans. A strong tradition of revivalism in the United States may have made a difference in the fate of American dispensationalism, which offered the same binary outlook of good versus evil as popular revivalists did. An American Calvinist preoccupation with the classification and delineation of theological viewpoints also left its mark on dispensationalism, as fundamentalists embraced the doctrine.153

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A 1918 book on dispensational premillennialism by the Baptist pastor Clarence Larkin, with its famous diagrams explaining dispensationalism, is an example of this desire to systematize and logically order prophetic ideas. A businessman, Larkin had no difficulty imagining that science and a rational thought process could support biblical accounts of creation and the End. Larkin told his readers that “the ‘Word of God’ and the ‘Works of God’ must harmonize. There can be no conflict between the Bible and Science.”154 In discussing the creation of the world, he analyzed the astronomer Pierre Simon Laplace’s 1796 “nebular hypothesis” that “the sun, planets and moons of our Solar System were once one vast spherical mass of nebulous of gaseous matter, out of which they have developed.”155 Though Laplace himself saw a creator deity as needless in the order of the universe, Larkin had no trouble marrying his Christianity and Laplace’s ideas and concluding that Laplace’s theory is likely and explains, for instance, the nearly circular orbits of the planets. Unlike mainstream and liberal Protestants who were making their peace with evolution, Larkin believed that any science that contradicted the Bible must itself be wrong. Combined with an older Christian belief that nature could be read like scripture to find Truth, Larkin’s conclusion that Laplace had insight to offer was unexceptional.156 According to Larkin, Genesis does not allow for an interpretation of God working through evolution. For instance, the repeated phrase of a species being created “after his kind” suggests that God created separate species. Larkin insisted that there are no “intermediate links” in the fossil record of the development of animals and plants nor evidence of any clear ongoing evolutionary processes; the same is true for humans.157 On this last point, conservative evangelicals would demur in the future, seeking instead to explain such evidence rather than deny its existence. Larkin’s willingness to consider scientific arguments in his biblical analysis also appeared in his discussion of the apocalypse but was less profound than in his discussion of creation. He was willing to attribute some of the plagues described to natural causes. The blast of the third trumpet in Revelation 8:10–­11 “sounds a ‘great burning star,’ called ‘Wormwood’ ” and may very well be in the form of a meteor “that in exploding will fill the atmosphere with ‘noxious gases,’ that will be absorbed by the rivers and fountains of water, and poison them, so as to cause the death of all who drink of them.”158 He repeated the correlation of natural events with Bible prophecy when alluding to Peter’s prophecy that “the Heavens shall pass away with a

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great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”159 Larkin argued that Peter used the Greek word “cosmos,” which suggested that not the Earth but the atmosphere will burn up: “the intense heat will cause the gases in the atmosphere to explode, which the Apostle describes as the ‘heavens (the atmosphere) passing away with a great noise.’ ”160 Similar to scientific apocalypticists who supposed it was possible for humans to colonize other planets, Larkin even speculated that God intended for humanity to inhabit other planets: “it seems clear from the presence of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, that God intended the human race to populate the earth, and when it became too thickly populated, to use the surplus population to colonize other spheres.”161 That argument embodies the way conservative evangelicals could support national scientific and technological enterprises within a literalist biblical framework. Larkin’s speculation about space travel, however, would remain unusual among conservative evangelicals who never dreamed on a cosmological time scale, despite seeing God as infinite. While bound to a strict understanding of the Earth as being six thousand years old, the sophistication of other scientific arguments in Bible prophecy grew during the twentieth century. Bible prophecy writers would also spend more time detailing social and cultural trends within the United States that they felt threatened the moral fabric of society. World War I had the effect of making premillennialists pay attention to their surrounding culture. They had never held out hope for civilization, seeing it as destined for destruction, and this was no less true when Europeans rushed off to war in 1914. When premillennialists had to defend themselves against charges of being unpatriotic, they responded by transforming themselves from pacifists into supporters of the war effort. The war against Germany became a conflict between Christian civilization and German rationalism. By the end of the war, premillennialists had committed themselves to protecting the United States as a Christian society, and their denunciations of modernism came to encompass cultural trends that belied the United States as a God-­fearing nation.162 Premillennialism became the most important guiding force within fundamentalism after this shift in emphasis.163 Fundamentalists’ new preoccupation with saving civilization may have encouraged them to rescue America by promoting anti-­evolution laws during the 1920s in states like Tennessee, Florida, and Oklahoma.164 The ensuing controversy in Dayton, Tennessee, featured William Jennings Bryan as

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representative for the prosecution pitted against Clarence Darrow, the defense lawyer for John Scopes. Scopes coached football and occasionally taught biology, and city leaders roped him into saying he had broken a law banning instruction in human evolution in public classrooms. Their plan was to take up an offer from the American Civil Liberties Union to defend any teacher who violated such a law. The trial, held in a jovial atmosphere, turned serious when Bryan and Darrow faced off. In popular culture like the film Inherit the Wind (1960), the older Bryan appears the loser in the debate with a Darrow at his peak.165 In fact, partisanship predicted reactions to that episode during the trial. Fundamentalists celebrated Bryan’s testimony as an unambiguous victory, while liberals extolled Darrow for unmasking Bryan as an ignoramus.166 Media sympathetic to Darrow fostered the stereotype of fundamentalist Christians as antiscience, even though Bryan himself was only nominally a fundamentalist. The disappointment to fundamentalists was the unexpected refusal of scientists believed to be anti-­evolution to testify on behalf of the prosecution. The one scientist, George McCready Price, whom Bryan invoked as supporting his views, was absent and had his credentials credibly attacked. Darrow pointed out that Price, a Canadian-­born Seventh-­day Adventist, had neither produced reputable scholarship nor attained a degree in science. Coverage of the trial did not compel fundamentalists to go into hiding. As Matthew Sutton explains, Scopes “had little to do with the trajectory of fundamentalism proper at all.”167 The trial furnished a convenient caricature of fundamentalists to their opponents, but conservative evangelicals, including fundamentalists, continued to tackle political questions of the day. The 1920s and 1930s raised the specters of Communism and a Catholic president for conservative evangelicals, and they linked atheism to the former and the Antichrist to the latter. Their belief that Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency resembled the dictatorship of the Antichrist led to fervent opposition to the New Deal and pleas to vote Republican.168 Political failures, as with the repeal of Prohibition, easily fit into their prophetic belief that the world would only grow more sinful prior to the Rapture. Like other Americans, conservative evangelicals still had faith in science, however. The Scopes trial suggested that the scientific establishment had sold out to evolution, but conservative evangelicals still respected scientific discoveries as a tool for biblical exegesis.169 Science and societal ills were not yet identical in their minds, and Scopes deterred no one from using science to support apocalyptic theories. In the 1930s, one such evangelical, Charles G.

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Trumball, the Presbyterian editor of Sunday School Times, reported on his notion that sunspots, the discovery of a possible new planet that was affecting the orbit of Uranus, and meteor showers were fulfilling the prediction that “the powers of heaven shall be shaken” prior to the Second Coming in Luke 21.170 For Trumbull and other Bible prophecy practitioners, the signs of the End were manifestations of known physical phenomena instead of mysterious supernatural events. By this point, religious professionals were not the only ones publishing science-­infused Bible prophecy. A Presbyterian lawyer from Illinois, Nathan Grier Moore, demonstrated the populist appeal of using science to explain Bible prophecy. Moore’s Man and His Manor (1934) analyzed potential ways the world could end from the perspective of science, and it attempted to reconcile science and religion in the area of end-­times speculation. Moore offered a layman’s account of scientific conclusions about humanity’s and the Earth’s pasts as well as the likely future of both. Like scientific apocalypticists in Britain and Europe, Moore conceded that the end of life on Earth and the destruction of the world may occur separately or together, but, he asserted, “ultimately humanity will disappear.”171 Moore believed that the biblical account of the End was compatible with science: “on a scientific, as on a scriptural basis, the picture by St. Peter may describe it [the end of the world]. It deals rather with the fact than the method, but it is there assumed that it will be ‘burned with fervent heat.’ If so the last remnant of availing life, and the last world of matter, may break up together in a cataclysm of fire.”172 Moore’s invocation of the description of global fire in 2 Peter presaged the repeated use of that passage by premillennialists after World War II when applying science to biblical passages describing the apocalypse. 173 A similar desire to incorporate technological advances and scientific knowledge into descriptions of the apocalypse was also present in premillennial fiction during the 1930s. Another American layperson, Eleanor De Forest, published Armageddon: A Tale of the Antichrist in 1938. Her novel found a home at William B. Eerdmans’s publishing company, founded in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after Eerdmans immigrated to the United States from Holland. Eerdmans was known at the time for its Calvinist publications. De Forest’s work foreshadowed future themes in Bible prophecy novels. The distinction that scientific apocalypticists made between the end of the world and the end of humanity informed her version of the Christian End. A character, in describing the End, says, “There will be profound changes in this

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earth as when the new heavens and new earth of Revelation materialize, but never total destruction.”174 De Forest’s novel centers in part on two scientists (a Russian and an American) who vie for the development of “the cathode ray,” described as “a terrible war weapon for aircraft use.”175 Just as after 1945 premillennialists would compare the effects of atomic weaponry to biblical passages that indicate destruction by fire, the fictional cathode ray’s effects resemble, according to the scientist that developed it, a prophetic passage in Zechariah: “And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem, their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes and their tongues shall consume away in their mouths.”176 When the cathode ray is used in the novel, an observer exclaims: “There’s nothing left but skeletons—​ ­grinning, horrible skeletons! The others are going the same way. The flesh scabs, dries, falls off and disappears.”177 Though the cathode ray gun was a silly conception, the adoption of science fictional language indicates De Forest’s desire to place prophecy on a scientific footing. Far from God’s judgment being a supernatural event, humans could create the means by which God metes out punishment in De Forest’s novel. De Forest is a notable exception in a field that white men mostly pioneered and dominated. Pentecostals and charismatics tended to be more inclusionary in practice than other evangelicals, taking the idea of brotherhood and sisterhood in Christ to its logical conclusion. The Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson spent the 1920s and 1930s warning her radio audience that doomsday was near, while also daring to hold integrated revivals, but she had no female counterparts in the older evangelical sects. McPherson personified the differences between Pentecostals and other evangelicals who believed women had no business preaching and who eschewed interracial cooperation. Though fundamentalists and Pentecostals could form an alliance regarding the evils of evolution or the necessity of salvation through Christ, the Pentecostal practices of faith healing and speaking in tongues resulted in doctrinal differences within dispensational premillennialism.178 The most common formulation of dispensationalist premillennialism describes miracles as gifts that ended on the Day of Pentecost when Christ’s apostles experienced a communion with the Holy Spirit, resulting in their speaking in tongues. Such miracles will only reappear during the Tribulation period in this interpretation. For Pentecostals and charismatics, speaking in tongues and faith healings were part of the spiritual life of modern believers,

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and that experience in the Holy Spirit was a necessary precondition for being Raptured.179 The rivalry among evangelical sects, evident in competing versions of dispensationalism, did not make a major appearance in general works of Bible prophecy until the new millennium. Early Pentecostalism did not have a Scofield or Larkin of its own to popularize a Pentecostal version of dispensationalism; this may be because the movement in its infancy focused on differentiating itself from other evangelicals. The centrality of healings and glossolalia in charismatic faith may have also led to an emphasis of the supernatural over the scientific. Early Pentecostals believed prophesying the future was a spiritual gift that believers enjoyed, although many modern Pentecostals argue that prophesying is best understood as testifying to the power of the Lord. Access to prophecy via the Holy Spirit may have dampened enthusiasm for poring over the Bible for new insights in the light of modern science.180 Despite the incorporation of science and man-­made weapons into their visions of the End, most conservative evangelicals, including Pentecostals, maintained an emphasis on the supernatural throughout this period, albeit sometimes combining discussion of the two. The fundamentalist founder of the Sword of the Lord, John R. Rice, in Bible Lessons on the Book of Revelation (1943), discussed natural phenomena alongside the supernatural. He expounded on the potentially apocalyptic effects of natural phenomena like comets and meteors, seeing the effects of a meteor crash in the description of Revelation 8:10–­11: “scientific men have long known that if a great meteor should fall to earth it might kill many thousands of people, if in a populated section, and that the gases and chemicals might poison millions.”181 For Rice, even though God may work through natural phenomena, he certainly did not have to follow the laws of nature. Rice argued that Revelation 21:23–­24 suggests “when the heavens pass away at the time when the earth is burned over (II Pet. 3:10, 12) that the sun will be done away with.”182 The Earth would continue, with Jesus Christ providing it the light it needs, in Rice’s interpretation. The wartime context probably affected Rice’s pessimism very little, but World War II transformed scientific apocalypticism. The technological advances of the nineteenth century initially had inspired great optimism about the future among Westerners. The prominence of the English in directing scientific apocalypticism during this period suggested, however, that perceived threats to the national ascendancy of such a major power could seem apocalyptic. As Americans gained national power, they too began fearing what having such power and such technological expertise could mean. The

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world wars forced the United States to assume a greater role in world affairs. While World War I had induced apocalyptic fears—​­with some observers referring to World War I as “Armageddon” to evoke the new destructiveness of warfare—​­World War II proved to be the war that confirmed the idea that next time a war would mean an apocalypse. Because of Americans’ technological prowess, they could likely help cause it. Americans who pulled at this pessimistic strand unraveled the blanket trust in a technological age by the twenty-­first century. Unlike after World War II, one overriding apocalyptic concern did not dominate the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries leading up to 1945. After 1945 the nuclear bomb focused the attention of both scientific and Christian apocalypticists. In this earlier period, scientific apocalypticists expressed a variety of anxieties over race, technology, and natural disasters. Evolution provided a link for these different concerns; perceived racial groups within humanity and humanity itself were destined for extinction whether by their own obsolescence, their own technology, or a natural cause, like the death of the sun. In articulating these threats, scientific apocalypticists defined the end of the world in a new way. Some of these writers considered unambiguously how the Christian apocalypse might fit into their scheme of the End, while others implicitly incorporated ideas like humanity deserving judgment through destruction. Compared to later in the twentieth century, however, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the scientific apocalyptic was less likely to borrow religious imagery to describe the End. Science popularizers’ concentration on the implications of evolution created a distinctive apocalyptic apart from premillennialism. When scientific apocalypticists proposed that humans could cause their own destruction, their formulations of the End became more similar to premillennialists. The idea of humanity causing its own death, however, was at odds with the optimistic idea that humanity could endure with technological help. The bomb ushered in the ideas that would resolve that tension. That humanity was in danger from itself pervaded post-­1945 apocalyptic literature. Christian apocalypticists on both sides of the Atlantic also did not display one overriding anxiety about the world; after 1945, for them, too, the bomb and the Cold War dominated their literature. In this earlier period, premillennialists were concerned with defending themselves against modernist interpretations of the Bible and promoting a politics in harmony with their beliefs. Modernists tended to see Christ’s Second Coming as metaphorical rather than literal, and for many conservative evangelicals, defense of

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dispensational premillennialism was just part of defending their faith. While modernists may have tempered their beliefs and their interpretations in accordance with what was scientifically plausible, conservative evangelicals used science in quite the opposite way: to show just how believable and possible biblical events were, especially in relation to the book of Revelation. Meanwhile, scientists constructed boundaries that excluded God and the Bible from professional work. When conservative evangelicals relied on science to explain the Bible, that practice took on the appearance of attacking science itself. This trend became more pronounced after 1945. The dual focus of scientific and religious apocalypticists on the bomb after the war meant that it became harder for scientific apocalypticists to pretend they were drawing their portraits of the End in isolation from religion.

Chapter 3

Postnuclear Fantasies

For modern Americans World War II was the last “good war,” and the “greatest generation” was responsible for winning it. The creation of the bomb during that war completed the transformation of warfare begun during the Civil War. Nuclear weapons could accomplish the extensive slaughter of enemy soldiers and civilians without casualties. Subsequent wars required Americans to hold back their technological advantage, a situation that created moral complexities and retroactively romanticized World War II. The bomb also marked the maturity of both scientific apocalypticism and dispensationalist premillennialism. Speculation about human extinction no longer required much imagination, and dispensationalists did not have to hunt for scientific theories to match prophetic descriptions. For scientific apocalypticists, the atomic bomb turned the possibility of an undirected apocalypse into an apparent probability. Popular science fiction and nonfiction writers immediately began to offer visions of atomic destruction after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. For American premillennialists, the advent of the bomb was less of a watershed event. Frank Kermode, an English literary scholar, in The Sense of an Ending (1966) argues that “it would be childish to argue, in a discussion of how people behave under eschatological threat, that nuclear bombs are more real and make one experience more authentic crisis-­feelings than armies in the sky.”1 The atomic bomb did not make the apocalypse any more “real” for conservative American Protestants, but it did give Bible prophecy analysts further evidence that the apocalypse was approaching. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, premillennialists had grasped that science could bolster their visions

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of the End. The atomic bomb became yet another way in which scientific revelation could support biblical apocalypticism, lending support to an already strong apocalyptic tradition. For scientific apocalypticists the atomic bomb brought the scientific apocalyptic to the forefront of popular culture. Despite these differences, scientific and religious apocalypticists were in agreement: the atomic bomb made the end of the world more likely than ever before. Some science fiction writers anticipated this development before even scientists recognized it. In 1911 the physicist Ernest Rutherford proposed a new conception of the atom: most of the mass of an atom was contained at its core in what Rutherford called the nucleus. Combined with Einstein’s proposal that mass can turn into energy and vice versa, Rutherford’s study of radioactive materials led him to observe that enormous energy is contained within the nuclei of atoms.2 If the nuclei could be split or if the nuclei of two atoms could be fused, then that energy could be released, but Rutherford did not think that humans would ever discover how to control such energy.3 Despite Rutherford’s doubts, as early as 1914, H. G. Wells wrote in The World Set Free of a world transformed by atomic energy.4 This was a vision with lasting historical impact; the Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard read it for the first time in 1932 and referred to it when he described building the first nuclear reactor in a scientific report.5 A scientist in Wells’s novel proclaims that when humanity harnesses the power of the atom, “that perpetual struggle for existence, that perpetual struggle to live on the bare surplus of Nature’s energies will cease to be the lot of Man. Man will step from the pinnacle of this civilization to the beginning of the next.”6 The scientist’s predictions come true in the course of the novel, but a war stems over the fruits of the technology. Wells invented a new element, Carolinum, which supplies the energy in the bombs used in this “last war,” bombs that, in his conception, are tossed from an airplane and continue exploding until the entire element is used up. The world’s major cities are destroyed and abandoned for generations because “the radiations eat into people’s skins.”7 Wells, without the reality of the bomb, provided an optimistic ending: leaders of the world realize that they must end “the use of these frightful explosives before the world was utterly destroyed.”8 At the end, a world government is formed with a permanent peace ensuing, another aspect of Wells’s novel that would have an enduring impact. After World War II scientists like Szilard proposed similar solutions when trying to find a way to prevent nuclear proliferation or a nuclear war.

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Wells was not alone in anticipating the positive effects of atomic power prior to 1945, but the enthusiasm for such energy waned even among Americans as the world hurtled from one world war to the next. A CBS broadcast in 1937 envisaged the end of the world through an atomic explosion.9 In the radio play, an alien observer on Betelgeuse in 2179 observes Earth through a telescope so powerful that he can watch Earth’s social and political events taking place. Of course, as he points out to his wife, he is witnessing events that occurred 242 years ago, placing the events in 1937, the same year as the broadcast. On Earth, a scientist announces to colleagues that he has invented a “device for controlling and liberating atomic energy.” “Save for an accident,” he asserts, “man is liberated from death” and war because of this “bottled sunshine.” In the course of lauding the machine’s characteristics, the inventor warns his associates not to touch a lever on the device; an accident follows in which the lever is pushed, and the Betelgeuse observer notes the destruction of the Earth. He tells his wife that there are billions of planets like the now-­ defunct Earth, and the destruction of a planet happens around four times each night. Despite the destruction at the center of the story, the presence of the alien observer stressed that humanity, despite its own feelings of self-­ importance, is a trivial detail in the larger picture. As Wells suggested decades earlier, the vastness of time and space was a double-­edged sword that cut through the veneer of human self-­importance. The radio play anticipated the reaction of the scientists who worked to build the first atomic bomb.10 The scientists who toiled at Los Alamos had signed up for the Manhattan Project with the limited intention of beating the Germans to the invention of an atomic bomb. Their good intentions did not prevent them from feeling as if they had made a mistake after the defeat of Hitler. When these scientists began to look back at the significance of their work, apocalyptic fears saturated their memories. In a 1942 summer meeting of physicists that J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Manhattan Project, assembled at Berkeley, California, to discuss developing the bomb, a Hungarian physicist, Edward Teller, proposed that an atomic explosion might ignite the atmosphere; he and other scientists worked out calculations to prove that it would not, and work on the bomb proceeded. On the day of the first atomic bomb test, 16 July 1945, the Italian physicist (and future Nobel Prize winner) Enrico Fermi resurrected the old fear, jokingly taking bets from his colleagues as to whether or not the Trinity shot would set fire to the atmosphere, thus ending the world or at least obliterating New Mexico.11 While the bomb did not blow up New Mexico, it still elicited apocalyptic

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musings from the scientists involved, at least in retrospect. Oppenheimer has famously said that the test brought to mind the Bhagavad-­Gita, a text that Oppenheimer was often known to quote, when Vishnu says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”12 I. I. Rabi, an American physicist who worked on the project, later described his reaction upon seeing the Trinity explosion as first of joy, then “there was a chill, which was not the morning cold; it was a chill that came to one when one thought, as for instance when I thought of my wooden house in Cambridge, and my laboratory in New York, and of the millions of people living around there, and this power of nature which we had first understood it to be—​­well, there it was.”13 After the successful test in July 1945, Szilard, who had urged Albert Einstein to write the letter to President Franklin Roosevelt that led to the Manhattan Project, offered a petition advising that a demonstration of the bomb be given to the Japanese, rather than the surprise, outright use of it on a Japanese target. Szilard, a Hungarian émigré, had particular influence on other physicists as he, along with Fermi, had managed the first controlled chain reaction at the end of 1942 at the University of Chicago. Many of the physicists at Chicago who had also worked on the problem of separating plutonium from uranium signed the petition. Many of the Los Alamos scientists, Fermi, Oppenheimer, and Teller among them, did not sign the petition, saying that “in any case, physicists had no special competence on the moral question” over whether to use the bomb or mount an invasion of the Japanese mainland.14 Unlike the Los Alamos scientists who seemed to delay thinking about the long-­term consequences of the bomb until after the end of the war, Harry Truman grasped the apocalyptic potential of the bomb immediately. When he was informed of the successful test, he wrote in his diary, “We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesied in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark.”15 After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, physicists openly voiced concern that their work would lead to the destruction of mankind. Late in 1945, Oppenheimer met with Truman at the White House where he told the president that he felt as if he had blood on his hands; Truman proffered a handkerchief in return. After Oppenheimer’s departure, Truman told Dean Acheson, his undersecretary of state at the time, that he did not want to see Oppenheimer again and reportedly complained, “Blood on his hands! Dammit, he hasn’t half as much blood on his hands as I have! You just don’t go around belly aching about it.”16

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Physicists turned to organizing and writing to broadcast their opinions. An early effort to convey the troubling implications of the bomb to Americans was the publication in 1946 of One World or None, a group of essays by physicists such as Hans Bethe, Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Szilard.17 These essays described the destructive effect the bomb could have on American cities and urged the world to unite in order to prevent a nuclear war from ever coming to pass. Many of the essays in One World or None were quite technical; not all of the physicists who contributed to the volume had mastered the art of explaining complicated scientific issues in a way the public could understand. But some of the writers found ways to make the threat of atomic weaponry relevant to nonscientists. Philip Morrison, a physicist who contributed to the invention of nuclear weapons at both the University of Chicago and Los Alamos, supplied a powerful essay titled “If the Bomb Gets Out of Hand.” Concluding that American readers could not properly visualize the scene at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Morrison recounted the hypothetical effects of an atomic attack on New York City.18 He described the injuries and radiation burns that New Yorkers going about their business would suffer; sketched the likely damage to structures, including famous ones like the Empire State Building; and outlined the long-­ range effect of radiation from the bomb. He ended his essay with this warning: “New York City had thus suffered under one bomb, and the story is unreal in only one way: The bombs will never again, as in Japan, come in ones or twos. They will come in hundreds, even in thousands. . . . ​If the bomb gets out of hand, if we do not learn to live together so that science will be our help and not our hurt, there is only one sure future. The cities of men on earth will perish.”19 Scientists grasped straightaway that fear could be a powerful impetus to political reform. If Americans did not act to unify the world, then destruction of that caliber would be their fate. This was no cynical ploy, however. Physicists like Morrison were in a position to envision how nuclear weapons would only become more powerful in the years to come. With the threat of extinction looming, Morrison’s portrayal of the End contained an amount of detail that rivaled premillennialist descriptions of Armageddon. Oppenheimer’s and other physicists’ attempts to repent for their work on the bomb after 1945 didn’t persuade science fiction writers who regularly depicted scientists as being completely unconcerned with the consequences of their research, to the detriment of all humanity.20 While Oppenheimer might have felt guilty, the bombings of Hiroshima

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and Nagasaki in August 1945 elated most Americans; the United States had harnessed a new power that ended the war, averting the possibility of a bloody invasion of the Japanese mainland. Ron Hirschbein, a philosopher, writes in “Peace on Earth Without Goodwill Toward Men: Nuclear Weapons and American Millenarian Aspirations” (1997) that the advent of nuclear weapons culminated American faith in the redemptive power of what Walt Whitman called, “the strong, light work of engineers.” The time in the Los Alamos desert, the epiphany at the Trinity test site, and the apocalyptic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were construed as the fulfillment of a resonant millenarian promise. . . . ​According to the new civic eschatology, nuclear weapons would usher in the millennium: national salvation—​­unprecedented peace, prosperity and power—​­for the elect among nations.21 Hirschbein made too much of “a new civic eschatology”; scientists and their counterparts in fiction writing had strong voices of dissent that tried to muffle nuclear enthusiasm. Still, the nuclear triumphalism that had begun with The World Set Free ran through the late 1940s and 1950s. Popular culture reflected the celebratory response to the American development of the bomb. Americans listened to songs on the radio celebrating the power of the atomic bomb, such as the jazz musician Slim Gaillard’s late 1945 song “Atomic Cocktail.” Gaillard sang, “It’s the drink that you don’t pour / Now when you take one sip you won’t need anymore / You’re small as a beetle or big as a whale—​ ­BOOM—​­Atomic Cocktail.”22 Fred Kirby, a disc jockey in North Carolina, wrote a song in the week of the atomic bombings in Japan that was later recorded by the Buchanan Brothers in 1946. Called “Atomic Power,” the chorus announced, “Atomic power, atomic power / Was given by the mighty hand of God.”23 When the United States began further atomic testing on Bikini Atoll in 1945, a tiny, new bathing suit appeared, named the “bikini” after the tests.24 Despite this jubilant response, American and British science fiction writers and popular nonfiction writers continued the work of scientists in One World or None by reformulating the scientific apocalyptic to be based on nuclear weapons; it was a vision in which Americans and perhaps all of humanity would have to pass through a fiery conflagration before achieving the “millennium.” A prominent historian of the Puritans, Perry Miller, acknowledged this apocalyptic when he wrote in “The End of the World” that “the

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authors of the highly official United States Bombing Survey are not, I am persuaded, theologians or poets, and they probably did not know that they were falling into the pattern of a literary form more ancient, and more rigid than the sonnet. Yet artists of the apocalyptic vision would envy them the stark simplicity, as well as the perfect tense, of their summation: ‘The atomic bomb shattered the normal fabric of community life and disrupted the organizations for handling the disaster.’ ”25 Science fiction writers invented new roles for themselves as prophets and educators of the atomic age, a conclusion that editors, literary scholars, and cultural commentators eagerly substantiated over the course of the twentieth century. Clifton Fadiman, an editor commenting on Ray Bradbury in an introduction to a 1958 edition of The Martian Chronicles (1946), suggested that Bradbury “puts his aims all too casually when he says, ‘Science fiction is a wonderful hammer; I intend to use it when and if necessary, to bark a few shins or knock a few heads, in order to make people leave people alone.’ ”26 Both American and British science fiction writers began to “knock heads,” offering graphic visions of a destroyed Earth at the hands of irresponsible scientists and unrepentant humans. The apocalypses they described at first were gloomy and meaningless. The year 1946 saw several science fiction offerings in which humanity destroys itself with nuclear bombs.27 The evolutionary timeline provided context for the imminent threat. Philip Wylie, a cowriter of When Worlds Collide (1933), published a short story in January 1946 called “Blunder” in which a brief nuclear war devastates much of the Earth, and an atomic energy experiment destroys the rest of the planet. The narrator comments at the end, “If Mars had inhabitants, they certainly rejoiced, for there was created in their chilly firmament a small but profligate sun where the earth had circled, blue-­green, for two billion years.”28 Darwinian concepts had inspired the origins of the scientific apocalyptic, and they continued to appear in the new nuclear-­based apocalyptic. Evolution took a new turn in stories of mutations created by radioactivity in other science fiction stories during the late 1940s. Mutants from radiation become the new “Vril-­ya,” horrifying to humans but destined to usurp Homo sapiens in short stories published in 1948 by the American authors Judith Merril, John D. MacDonald, and Margaret St. Clair.29 Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles implied that such ideas about the animal nature of man had produced an existential crisis that humanity might not survive. Set at the beginning of the twenty-­first century, humanity destroys Earth through nuclear war and kills off the Martians by introducing bacteria

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when they arrive on Mars to establish colonies. Bradbury, raised as a Baptist in the Midwest, apparently absorbed lessons from his evangelical childhood. He points to a spiritual dearth in humanity as the cause, a theory later science fiction authors would poach. A crewmember early on in the novel tries to save the Martians from the destructiveness of humans. Crewman Spender says to his captain of the Martians, “They knew how to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn’t try too hard to be all men and no animal. That’s the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered that Darwin and our religions didn’t mix. . . . ​We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for.”30 Bradbury deliberately played with religious themes in his work. In a 1948 short story “The Man,” Jesus comes to preach to the Mars colonists. When doubters from Earth appear, Jesus absents himself until the doubters have left. Bradbury’s fiction implied that humans needed religion to avoid killing themselves off with technology. It was not the literal Christianity of fundamentalists they needed, but a choice to live spiritually, which was why the doubters on Mars could not see Jesus. Bradbury was ahead of his time in offering this solution to the nihilism that science and technology could engender. For other science fiction writers, the annihilative potential of nuclear weapons made religion seem ludicrously inadequate, even if still necessary. In Philip Wylie’s The Answer (1955), both the Americans and Russians, during an atom bomb test, accidentally shoot down an angel who fails in his mission to tell each side to “love one another.” In 1967, Harlan Ellison published a short story that another publisher had suggested only the Atheist Journal in Moscow would publish. In Damon Knight’s “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?” the Day of Judgment arrives complete with the angels carrying their vials, but God and his angels find no sign of human life. They realize that a nuclear war has extinguished humanity. God only finds a sign that reads “WE WERE HERE. WHERE WERE YOU?”31 Science fiction writers who agreed with Wylie and Ellison looked for ways to fill the void that the bomb left and in doing so unconsciously re-­created premillennialist scenarios. Messianism was one way out of the trap of pointlessness. Americans could choose to sacrifice themselves for the species, even if nuclear war could drive extinction. Americans rise above their desire for revenge after a devastating nuclear war in Theodore Sturgeon’s “Thunder and Roses” (1947). Rather than destroying all life, a character in Sturgeon’s short story

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successfully convinces the military not to destroy the world: “We must not strike back. Mankind is about to go through a hell of his own making. We can be vengeful—​­or merciful, if you would sterilize the planet so that not a microbe, not a blade of grass could escape, and nothing new could grow. We could reduce the earth to a bald thing, dead and deadly.”32 By the late 1940s, British nuclear fiction had also attained a despairing tone, but unlike American science fiction, which recuperated from its initial hopelessness as it incorporated premillennial language and themes, British science fiction would maintain a stark gloominess throughout the Cold War. Americans entered the postwar period anxious that depressed economic conditions might return, but instead found themselves in a long, unprecedented era of economic growth. Science fiction reflected this situation, and American nuclear fiction tended to end with a renewed hope for the future. For Britons, World War II had been a moral burden that they had willingly shouldered, but they had also expected American generosity to continue while the British Empire got back on its feet. Instead, Americans announced a quick end to Lend-­Lease and began discussing terms of repayment shortly after V-­J Day on 15 August 1945, despite the hardship it would cause England. The post–­World War II era saw a rapid disintegration of the British Empire, as England could no longer afford its colonies. From the American perspective, they had not fought the war to save the British Empire, and American politicians had little sympathy for the English plight. Moreover, unlike Americans whose prosperity accompanied a housing and baby boom, for people in England, rationing and shortages continued into the 1950s.33 As the sun set on the British Empire, Americans added insult to injury by refusing to share nuclear technology with England, despite the participation of English scientists in the Manhattan Project. National destiny alone is not responsible for the differences among Western science fiction writers after World War II. In the nineteenth century, Americans had borrowed liberally from the British in the intellectual, cultural, and religious realms, but after World War II, the former ally across the Atlantic underwent rapid secularization. By the 1960s, only a small minority of the English went to church, and the United States seemed exceptional for its high population of churchgoers.34 To the extent that both American and British authors ruminated on existentialism in the nuclear age, Americans tended to reify premillennialist theology, while British authors more often painted harsh portraits of a barren Earth, denuded of people and meaning. The tone of Byron’s and Shelley’s “last man” outings resonated throughout

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postwar British apocalyptic fiction, but American fiction still remained more indebted to the Wellsian prophetic stance and the Gernsbackian faith in technology. The British author Roald Dahl, better known for his children’s fiction, exemplified this difference. Deploying his playful but trenchant humor in Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen (published first in the United States in 1948 and a year later in England), Dahl also skipped past the issues at stake in the developing Cold War to predict an inevitable End for humanity. The stars of his first novel The Gremlins (1942) made a return appearance to witness the man-­made apocalypse in Sometime Never. The leader of the six-­ inch-­tall gremlins, known for plaguing the Royal Air Force in the war, predicts that his people shall inherit the Earth: “I know for certain that the human animal is doomed! He’s doomed to disappear for ever from the surface of the earth! Already his time is drawing near! The short and hectic span of his existence—​­which has been only a few thousand years anyway—​­will be soon at an end! He has not now more than a couple of hundred years to go at the most!”35 He lauds nuclear weapons as suicidal weapons that humans will be unable to resist using. Two wars finish off humanity, but the gremlins discover they have little to celebrate, as they only existed in the human imagination. Dahl ended the book with a nod to apocalyptic fiction’s Darwinistic origins: “Now the process [of evolution] would begin again, and if the planet Earth remained stable in the universe, then in another hundred million years another brainy complicated animal would probably evolve and take possession of this world.”36 Though Dahl depicted the End as total, Britons shared the fear with Western and Eastern Europeans that they might be destroyed as proxies in a war between the USSR and the United States. The Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, making this possibility seem all the more likely. Though Truman had told Oppenheimer he believed the Soviets would never be able to build the bomb, the Soviet accomplishment came as no surprise to science fiction writers who had been writing stories of atomic wars since the 1930s.37 Production of nuclear-­war stories and novels accelerated in the United States during the 1950s. The number of stories being written about nuclear war led the editor of Galaxy, a science fiction magazine, to call for a moratorium on nuclear-­war stories by 1952.38 Beginning in the 1950s, American writers combined other science fiction themes with the theme of nuclear war. Though nuclear concerns merged with stories of time travel, species displacement, cosmic disaster, robots, and

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aliens, nuclear weapons did not become just another one of many stock science fiction themes. Prior to 1945 some writers had expressed anxiety over technology, the apocalyptic implications of Darwinism, and the potential for an apocalyptic natural disaster. In such stories and novels in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, humanity was not unredeemable and so did not necessarily deserve species death. After 1945, humanity’s production of nuclear weapons demonstrated the essentially degenerate nature of the species to American science fiction writers. While other species are destined to replace humanity in Arthur Porges’s “The Rats” (1950), Clifford Simak’s City (1952), Lewis Padgett’s Mutant (1953), Richard Matheson’s “I Am Legend” (1954), Philip K. Dick’s “Planet for Transients” (1955), and Tom Godwin’s “You Created Us” (1955), it is not merely because of the vagaries of natural selection.39 These stories of species displacement have a moral component. Humanity has relinquished its place in evolution, either having destroyed itself through nuclear war or having created its successors through radiation. In Dick’s “Planet for Transients,” this is the reply to one character’s assertion that Homo sapiens is the pinnacle of life on Earth: “Not any more. Earth is alive, teeming with life. Growing wildly—​­in all directions. We’re one form, an old form. To live here, we’d have to restore the old conditions, the old factors, the balance as it was three hundred and fifty years ago. . . . ​We brought the War. We changed Earth. Not destroyed—​­changed. Made it so different we can’t live here any more.”40 Similarly, alien invasion fantasies in the 1950s emphasized humanity’s uniquely debased character. The first major Hollywood film to criticize the arms race came in 1951, and it argued that if alien civilizations exist, they would probably be morally superior to Earthlings. The Day the Earth Stood Still had an alien protagonist, Klaatu, who threatens the Earth with destruction unless humans give up their warring ways and make peace.41 His giant robot, Gort, will deliver the judgment unless humans convince Klaatu they are worth saving. At the climax of the film, a character has to utter the phrase “Gort, Klaatu baraada nichto” to prevent him from entering his world-­ extermination mode. That supplication saves humanity, but Klaatu warns humans that they have to create peace on Earth if their salvation is to be permanent. While Bradbury simply brought back Jesus, other scientific apocalypticists conjured up a new deity. The godlike power of Klaatu and the aliens he represents is all that can force humanity to bring about the millennium; their original sin is too much to overcome otherwise.42 While writers were passing judgment on humanity in the form of fiction,

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during the 1940s and 1950s nonfiction appeared on how a nuclear war would affect the United States in particular. David Bradley’s No Place to Hide (1948) and Ralph E. Lapp’s Must We Hide? (1949) differed on just how devastating a nuclear war would be. Bradley, a doctor who served on Operation Crossroads (a series of atomic tests on Bikini Atoll in 1946), reported that there was no way to defend against nuclear weapons, no method for decontamination after radiation exposure, and no medical safeguards against the effects of nuclear weapons. He also believed that nuclear weapons were especially dangerous because they affected the land of nations bombed for hundreds of years afterward. He said, “It is not the security of a political system but the survival of the race that is at stake in the indiscriminate use of atomic energy for political coercion.”43 By contrast, Lapp, an American physicist, argued that the dangers of nuclear war were exaggerated and that, with proper education, nuclear war could easily be survived. He argued, “The atomic bomb is truly a powerful weapon; we do not wish to imply that it is not. On the other hand, it does do only finite damage and this fact must be appreciated.”44 Lapp believed that technology could ameliorate the effects of the atomic bomb and suggested that the advent of the bomb presented an opportunity to better the lives of urban residents by forcing them to disperse.45 Science fiction writers in America responded to the debate over nuclear war’s effects with novels detailing the impact of nuclear war on a single town or family. In Judith Merril’s Shadow on the Hearth (1950), a Chicago family battles radiation sickness and worries about the fate of its patriarch who is missing for most of the book. Even though several of the characters become sick, they quickly recover. As if taking lessons from Lapp, the government is remarkably efficient; emergency relief teams are in place and work to organize Chicagoans during the aftermath of the bomb. One doctor tells the family, “Oh, we’ve been getting ready for this a long time. . . . ​Our country wasn’t so dumb.”46 Philip Wylie’s Tomorrow! (1954) laid out the fate of two towns: one that prepares for nuclear war and one that does not. The upshot of Wylie’s novel was that Americans could defend themselves against nuclear war: preparation means survival. A character in the novel writes in an editorial on civil defense that scientists’ apocalyptic predictions should be taken seriously: “But today it is not the priest, not the self-­appointed prophet with his crackpot interpretation of Daniel or the Book of Revelation, who says, ‘The earth may end.’ It is that very group of reasonable, orderly, unhysterical men upon

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whom society has learned, a little, to lean for comfort and truth: the scientists themselves!”47 That the scientists themselves were warning of the End in Wylie’s novel was not evidence that science had somehow become perverted; rather, if the scientists thought the world could end, then the characters in Wylie’s novel deemed the threat serious. In the 1950s, prior to the postmodern criticism of science and the onset of the modern environmental movement, Americans had an enormous amount of confidence in scientists and probably tended even less to question their conclusions. Technology had won the war and would protect Americans from Communism and economic rivalry in the future. Those scientists and science fiction writers who criticized science or feared humans couldn’t handle technology weren’t antiscience either. Their unconscious appropriation of premillennialism was an attempt to preserve the sanctity of science despite its potential repercussions. British writers, on the other hand, sighted danger in both science and Americans. When British authors weren’t killing off the entire species in their imaginations, they spared little sentiment for either Americans or themselves and branded technology as a handmaiden to destruction. Aldous Huxley in Ape and Essence (1948) fully embraced Darwinian imagery in postulating a version of that future. The novel imagined only New Zealand and parts of Africa escaping nuclear war by happenstance. There is no millennium after the purging of the species for the survivors, for humans themselves are merely deluded apes. Americans are the representatives of the hubris of mankind, which would have led to species extinction one way or another—​ ­through the depletion of resources and pollution of the environment, if nuclear war hadn’t intervened, according to one character.48 This is a far cry from Merril’s and Wylie’s postnuclear United States in which government workers restore domestic tranquility to the smart Americans who knew the Russians would resort to using the bomb one day.49 Huxley criticized science for creating an illusion of progress, but for Wylie a scientific apocalypse had a scientific answer. In both of Merril’s and Wylie’s works, nuclear war is terrible, but the characters are able to overcome the hardships and rebuild their towns through good government and the domestic skills of women. Shadow on the Hearth and Tomorrow! are rare examples of nuclear fiction that mirrored the government line on atomic warfare—​­that it was survivable with proper preparation. Their conception of a mild nuclear war may have been believable until 1954 when the invention of the hydrogen bomb justified the more pessimistic visions of a nuclear apocalypse.

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The United States began testing the hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands in 1954.50 That same year a famous incident made public the danger of fallout. During a thermonuclear test on Bikini Atoll, fishermen on the Japanese boat Lucky Dragon fell ill from radiation sickness, despite being officially out of the “danger” zone established by the U.S. military during the testing. One of the men eventually died. In the aftermath, the public became aware of the danger from fallout, not just in the case of war but also from nuclear testing. In 1959, Consumer Reports warned Americans about the presence of Strontium-­90 in their milk as a result of atmospheric nuclear tests. Magazine advertisements peddled comfortable shelters for the middle-­class family to use in case of a nuclear attack. Merril’s and Wylie’s visions now seemed hopelessly optimistic. Even if one survived the blast, the fallout would probably be fatal. Wylie even updated his own work with another novel in 1963 in which only thirteen Americans survive, returning to a more pessimistic approach as he had taken with “Blunder” in 1945.51 As a result of these developments, the period between 1954 and 1963 (the year of the Test Ban Treaty) was a time of heightened concern about nuclear weapons. During these years, civil defense reached the pinnacle of its popularity, Americans read best-­selling apocalyptic books like On the Beach (1957) by the British author Nevil Shute, and movies like Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Fail-­Safe (1964) played on the silver screen. The popular series The Twilight Zone (1959–­1964) addressed nuclear fears head-­on in several episodes throughout its run on American television.52 Political attention to nuclear issues matched the level of cultural attention. Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 presidential campaign spearheaded the idea of no more nuclear testing, while activists founded a protest group, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, in 1957. In Britain, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament called for the end of nuclear weapons outright. That same year American strategists and politicians publicly lamented a missile gap as the Russians launched the satellite Sputnik, a public relations triumph in the Cold War that concealed the American lead in the arms race.53 Scientists continued to be active in nuclear politics in this period, arguing that abolition and world unity were the only solutions to the arms race. Linus Pauling, a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962, published No More War! (1958) in which he echoed the earlier arguments of One World or None. He exhorted Americans to support international agreements to end nuclear testing (which he hoped would lead to agreements on abolition).54 The price of not passing such

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agreements was considerable: “There is a real possibility that a great nuclear war would change the nature of the pool of human germ plasm in such a way that the human species, as we know it, would not survive. This danger is a significant one for people living in every part of the world, but especially great for those in countries in which the nuclear war would be fought.”55 Pauling raised the specter of species destruction to argue that humans needed to change dramatically. Despite the warnings of scientists like Pauling, Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, made “massive retaliation” the reigning nuclear policy of Eisenhower’s administration. Massive retaliation was a clever way for the White House to keep the budget balanced by holding down costs of maintaining conventional forces, relying on nuclear threats “at places and times of American choosing” to any type of provocation for national security. “More bang for the buck” was the catchphrase describing this early policy. The policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) eventually supplanted massive retaliation in the 1960s. MAD rendered nuclear weapons practically and politically unusable—​­as long as the United States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy one another, deploying these destructive weapons was suicide. The new and much more deadly H-­bomb, the fear of fallout, and Russia’s seeming lead in the arms race resulted in American works like Mordecai Roshwald’s Level 7 (1959) and Helen Clarkson’s “The Last Day” (1959).56 The plots of both are the same: a community awaits the inevitable death of all life from fallout. As hopeless and meaningless as the apocalypses are in these works, these works were in the minority among American atomic fiction. The most prominent example of a meaningless nuclear apocalypse came from Nevil Shute in 1957. Shute’s On the Beach takes place in Australia, one of only two nations left in the world (the other is New Zealand) after a war has resulted in a nuclear dust cloud slowly circulating the Earth and killing all who are exposed. Australia plays host to an American nuclear submarine containing the last Americans alive. Dwight Towers, its commander, is a tragic figure who hangs out with a young woman named Moira Davidson, drinking pink gins and attending parties.57 As it becomes clear that it is only a matter of time before everyone in Australia succumbs to the radioactive cloud, the characters exhibit different responses. Moira complains of the unfairness, while the scientist John Osborne takes a philosophical perspective: “It’s not the end of the world at all. . . . ​It’s only the end of us. The world will go on just the same, only we

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shan’t be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”58 John chooses to kill himself, while Dwight rejects romance with Moira, echoing the Darwinian scientific apocalyptic by saying, “The human race was to be wiped out and the world made clean again for wiser occupants without undue delay.”59 The novel’s narrative takes place from the perspectives of Peter Holmes, a member of the Royal Australian Navy, as well as Moira, both deprived of the chance of an adult life. Moira struggles to understand the damaged Dwight, and it ends with her committing suicide while invoking his name. The American film version features Gregory Peck as the commander. Peck plays a more conventional hero than the novelistic version and is more stoic than repressed, unlike his print counterpart. The movie Moira is an older character who tries to seduce Dwight away from his memories of his family. Dwight is an innocent in the film, more so than Moira with her conniving romantic designs. Dwight (and the United States) is just as victim to the bomb as any of the Australians he encounters. Shute’s Moira, meanwhile, expresses her anger that Australia should suffer too: “It’s not fair. No one in the Southern Hemisphere ever dropped a bomb, a hydrogen bomb or a cobalt bomb or any other sort of bomb. We had nothing to do with it. Why should we have to die because other countries nine or ten thousand miles away from us wanted to have a war?”60 In contrast to Moira, characters in American novels during the same period believe that they have no choice in suffering nuclear war. Little attention is paid to whether or not Americans have culpability in the arms race; rather, Americans are stand-­ins for the tragedy of human life. The illusion of powerlessness among Americans allowed them to come up with numerous salvation plans, none of which involved significant political change. Like dispensational premillennialists, scientific apocalypticists had come to believe a fiery conflagration was inevitable, especially given humanity’s faults. The question was how to preserve meaning despite that belief. Premillennialists found it in their conviction that Christ was going to come back and institute a thousand years of peace; American scientific apocalypticists found it in ideas like a chosen few surviving a nuclear war to enjoy a secular millennium. This was the theme of Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon (1959), which detailed the activities of a fictional small town, Fort Repose, Florida, after an all-­out nuclear war cuts it off from civilization. The town pulls together and fares well, cooperating to make sure everyone has food and essential supplies. Some characters find a new purpose for their lives. The librarian of the town,

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whose services are suddenly quite valuable, thinks to herself, “It was strange, she thought, pedaling steadily, that it should require a holocaust to make her own life worth living.”61 Frank followed his novel with a nonfiction survival guide for nuclear war. Though his analysis of what the United States would be like after a nuclear war was hardly optimistic, he still urged people “to dig in” to survive the aftermath.62 Like the charge that dispensationalists courted Armageddon, such novels turned the apocalypse into an escapist fantasy for Americans frustrated with their lives. As nuclear war assumed a more frightening configuration to Americans with the Russians’ apparent edge in the arms race, nuclear strategists like Bernard Brodie and Herman Kahn debated the wisdom of the national strategy of deterrence. Kahn, in particular, was known for analyzing the acceptable human collateral damage of a nuclear war. He argued that Americans should prepare for limited nuclear war—​­he called MAD a “war-­gasm” in that the military planned to shoot off all its missiles in the case of an attack.63 In the novel Fail-­Safe (1962) by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, the authors dream up a Herman Kahn–­like character to question the morality of deterrence. Kahn appears as the coldly rational and ambitious Walter Groteschele. In the following passage, the authors drew on the popular portrait of Kahn as someone who brutally and callously discussed the acceptable costs of a nuclear war: “There was a morbidity about his subject matter which somehow flowed over onto Groteschele and gave him an aura. He was extremely careful never to discuss classified information in public, but even so he could draw a picture of how the United States would look after a thermonuclear first strike, the awful seductions of surrender, the number of children who would suffer malignant genetic defects from radioactivity.”64 Most nuclear fiction concluded that people like Kahn were only making the apocalypse more likely. Moreover, a limited nuclear war, which Kahn said the United States should prepare for, was an even bigger threat to nations in Europe trapped between two superpowers who might see their allies as expendable. The following year a major Hollywood film appeared that disapproved of deterrence but with less moral outrage than Fail-­Safe or Triumph. Dr. Strange­ love, Or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb was the result of the director Stanley Kubrick’s conclusion that deterrence could only be treated with absurdity. A British film, The Mouse That Roared, had reached a similar conclusion in 1959, but the Peter Sellers character in that film helped save the world from ridiculous nuclear policies. For Kubrick, an American expatriate living in England, such policies created absurd situations that

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American and Russian officials were too selfish and obtuse to resolve. Kubrick was familiar with nuclear strategy; he subscribed to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which published the work of Kahn, Brodie, and physicists like Edward Teller. In addition, he talked with Kahn as well as Thomas Schelling, another nuclear strategist, about the possibility of accidental nuclear war. One scholar has alleged that the title character in Kubrick’s movie is part Teller (in his occupation as a scientist pushing for nuclear weapons), part Henry Kissinger (in his appearance and accent), and part Kahn (in his research into the doomsday bomb). Kubrick lifted dialogue and ideas out of Kahn’s works. Perhaps the most vivid example of this comes in the war room when General Buck Turgidson urges the president to “choose between two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable postwar environments.” Turgidson insists, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops—​­depending on the breaks.”65 The general’s dialogue invokes Kahn’s phrase of “distinguishable postwar states” and mocks his declaration that the United States should consider that fifty million dead to be preferable to one hundred million dead. Both Fail-­Safe, which also appeared as a film in 1964, and Dr. Strangelove featured the problem of accidental nuclear war. In Fail-­Safe the president of the United States is only able to prevent a nuclear war by sacrificing New York (and his wife who is visiting New York at the time) after a bomber mistakenly receives orders to bomb Moscow. Deterrence fails outright in Dr. Strangelove; the Russians fail to realize that a doomsday machine is futile if no one knows about it. In assessing deterrence, both works conjectured that it is impossible to “plan” for a nuclear war. Fail-­Safe, however, is more hopeful than Dr. Strangelove. One American is able to prevent nuclear war by making a difficult decision that puts the survival of humanity before nationalism or personal interests; in Dr. Strangelove, one insane American is able to destroy the world. At the end of Dr. Strangelove, the characters are already preparing to prevent a “mine shaft gap” in the building of underground bunkers. But both adopted the arguments of antiwar scientists like Szilard and Pauling: planning for nuclear war only increases its probability. Films like these subscribed to the philosophy that showing Americans the possible outcome of war was the best approach to increase awareness and change policy. That this was similar to conservative evangelicals who warned of Armageddon to win converts for Christ went unnoticed, as did the tendency of such warnings to drift into wishful thinking.

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The second part of the title of Dr. Strangelove—​­How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb—​­was meant ironically, but nuclear apocalypse by the time of Dr. Strangelove was a static feature of American life. John F. Kennedy urged Americans to build shelters in 1961, prompting debates in Time magazine over “shelter ethics.”66 Kennedy and Khrushchev may have successfully resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963, but the narrow aversion of nuclear war reinforced the perpetual threat of nuclear apocalypse. Americans, much like Christians whose expectation of the Second Coming is unchanging, learned to live with the knowledge that the world could end at any moment. American science fiction writers dealt with this knowledge by writing stories in which humanity survived a nuclear war and rebuilt a better society another day. In the 1950s, American writers further developed the theme of freedom through nuclear apocalypse. Novels imagined wars that destroyed civilization, leaving in its wake primitive societies purified of the culture and technology responsible for nuclear war. Bradbury hinted at this theme in “The Highway” (1950). A Mexican man and his wife, while working their land, encounter a young American who tells them that nuclear war has finally ­happened—​­“it’s the end of the world.” The farmer turns to his wife and asks, “What do they mean, ‘the world’?”67 In the 1960s, two authors took this idea and ran with it. In Edgar Pangborn’s Davy (1964) and Piers Anthony’s Sos the Rope (1968), a new society arises from the ruins of the United States. In both, society consciously rejects technology as evil. The title character of Davy wonders “whether the generations could some day restore the good of Old Time without the evil, and the ocean that was a voice in my mind suggested: Maybe soon, maybe only another thousand years.”68 Characters in Sos the Rope fret that people will turn back to old ways: “We know what civilization leads to. . . . ​It brings competition for material things you do not need. Before long you will overpopulate the Earth and become a scourge upon it, like shrews who have overrun their feeding grounds.”69 Pangborn and Anthony sentimentalized primitivism, but nuclear fiction in general mirrored the “dehumanization of the other” in American society, according to Paul Williams, an American studies scholar.70 In Williams’s analysis “nuclear weapons are used to buttress a racial order that privileges whiteness—​­an idea that prohibits non-­white peoples from accessing such technology.”71 In the nuclear fiction described above, the mastery of technology has corrupted humanity, and only a return to Edenic conditions can treat

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the secularized original sin that caused it. Ignored is the desire of developing nations for an industrialization that will include the development of nuclear weapons as the ultimate protection from outside intervention and invasion. Such racial myths are not a feature of only postnuclear novels; environmental apocalypse novels during this same time period display a similar celebration of primitivism, accompanying the glorification of the American Indian as closer to nature. That impression marked environmental representations of the American landscape in the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, premillennialists began pointing to the millennium as heralding the cleansing of the Earth of radiation from a nuclear war or pollution from human activity. Whether a secular original sin or an evangelical one, the eradication of such iniquity was a necessary precursor to the millennium to which only Westerners had access. Technology had obliterated the “yellow peril,” but now technology was the peril, and no one else was trustworthy enough to wield it, from the American standpoint. American public attention to nuclear weapons dropped away after 1963, the year of the Test Ban Treaty. By placing nuclear tests underground, the treaty soothed a lot of anxieties surrounding nuclear weapons; it seemed to remove the threat from fallout. The treaty gave the public hope that politicians were attempting to address the nuclear threat, and with the nuclear tests gone from newspaper headlines, the issue receded into the background. The apparent promise of nuclear power to transform the world also lessened fears about its apocalyptic aspects. Nuclear-­power plants seemed to hold the key to the world’s future by solving the problem of dwindling natural resources like coal and oil.72 The rise of nuclear strategy, in the historian Paul Boyer’s words, “had become an esoteric, complex pursuit involving computers, game theory, and specialized technical vocabulary” that put it out of the reach of ordinary citizens, who responded with disengagement.73 By the mid-­1960s, the Vietnam War redirected public energies regarding Communism and liberal desires for peace. In early 1965 Johnson dramatically upped the U.S. military commitment to South Vietnam in response to a Viet Cong attack on an American base in Pleiku, and the debate over U.S. involvement in Vietnam began in earnest. Other historians have challenged this narrative, such as Margot A. Henriksen in Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (1997). In Henriksen’s account, there was no true waxing and waning of atomic anxiety. She argues for a “connection between the revolutionary

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character of the bomb and the revolutionary character of atomic age American culture.”74 The lack of explicit attention to nuclear issues did not mean Americans were quiescent; rather, a “culture of dissent” arose that fed off the chaos and discontinuity promised by the atomic bomb. Film noir and rock ‘n’ roll are Henriksen’s examples of how American counterculture itself represented a challenge to the traditional American authority embodied in the bomb. Henriksen’s study suggests that there was never any relaxation of nuclear anxiety. People outside of our strict formulations of science and religion found ways to deal with the reality of the bomb. For our purposes, however, scientific apocalypticists as well as conservative evangelicals did address nuclear issues less often as they uncovered new industrial hazards during the rise of environmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s. The looming nuclear apocalypse remained in the background. Nuclear apocalyptic speculation in American science fiction continued into the 1970s, but the number of such stories and novels dramatically declined.75 Nuclear awareness provoked environmental awareness. The ecological effect of nuclear energy is a case in point. In 1979, the debut of The China Syndrome, a movie in which an accident at a fictional nuclear-­power plant almost destroys the surrounding area, was preceded weeks earlier by the real-­life near meltdown of a nuclear-­energy plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The result was an outcry over the potential devastation and pollution that could arise if a nuclear-­energy plant did suffer a meltdown. While scientific apocalypticists tried to make sense out of an existence threatened by nuclear cataclysms, conservative evangelicals easily incorporated the atomic bomb into their visions of the End, concluding that it was yet another sign that Christ would be returning soon. Premillennialists did not challenge the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, sharing with most Americans the feeling it had been providential.76 One conservative evangelical publication, the Christian Herald, edited by the Methodist and evangelical minister Daniel Poling, printed a descriptive article about the atomic attacks on Japan but still concluded the same. This article by a Methodist pastor in Hiroshima, titled “I Went Through Hiroshima’s Hell,” merely emphasized that God could work even through such a horrible weapon as the atomic bomb.77 The war itself was important to the development of modern evangelicalism. After charges of disloyalty in World War I, fundamentalists were bent on making sure history didn’t repeat itself. Not only did most fundamentalists

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eschew pacifism, but they also linked the success of the United States to Christianity, spreading the myth of a nation founded by and for Christians.78 During the war a group of fundamentalist leaders created the National Association of Evangelicals for United Action (NAE) in 1943 to further reform their reputation. It included fundamentalist sects but also newer evangelical sects like Pentecostals. Harold Ockenga, who founded Fuller Seminary in 1947, labeled NAE evangelicals “neo-­evangelicals” to distinguish them from fundamentalists like Carl McIntire and Bob Jones, who thought conservative evangelicals had to remain apart from liberal Protestants.79 The NAE downplayed dispensational premillennialism, but those beliefs never stopped asserting an influence on the evangelical movement it represented.80 Dispensationalist premillennialism also continued to show its flexibility in the face of rapid change. The war proved doomsday was imminent, but winning the war testified to God’s love for America.81 Dispensationalism adapted readily to the Cold War as well. Historians have offered a variety of interpretations for the origins of the Cold War, and the current consensus is that both Americans and the Soviets bear responsibility. Conservative evangelicals, then and now, see a simple cause: the evil of Communism. Americans adopted the language of Winston Churchill’s declaration of a Cold War in 1946 of an iron curtain descending across Europe, dividing the world between free and Communist. Conservative evangelicals overlaid good and evil onto that map. Shifting the ideology of the Antichrist from Catholicism to Fascism to Communism was no gymnastic feat, as the strength of dispensationalism had always lain in its suppleness. There was little difference between seeing demons lurking behind every corner and spying Communists in the house down the street. Moreover, conservative evangelicals almost immediately recognized the significance of the bomb for their apocalyptic beliefs. Right after the first explosion, many became convinced that Armageddon had to be near—​­seeing in the destructive power of the bomb the fate of the world as predicted in the Bible.82 After these initial post-­Hiroshima prophetic musings, a second wave of prophecy writing occurred in the mid-­1950s, coinciding with the testing of the hydrogen bomb. Boyer describes the evidence that these writers offered: they “interlaced their discussions of the nuclear threat with a stock set of proof texts: the vision of a melting earth in II Peter; the crescendo of catastrophes in John’s Apocalypse; the all-­consuming conflagration and terrifying astronomical events woven through the book of John’s three short

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chapters[;] . . . ​and the prophet Zechariah’s terrifying description of Jehovah’s judgment on Israel’s enemies.”83 These passages, with details of worldwide destruction and human suffering during the final battle of Armageddon, lent themselves to nuclear comparisons. Some prophecy writers, certain of the fate of the world, did not support governmental policies either of building up the nuclear arsenal to face down the Communists or of exploiting nuclear power.84 Like scientific apocalypticists who saw the potential for a new and better human species, nuclear destruction, for conservative evangelicals, was both a terrible and marvelous fate: humanity could not avoid nuclear obliteration because it was necessary to usher in the millennium. While the atomic bomb reaffirmed the imminence of Christ’s return, premillennialists remained committed to their project of using new scientific discoveries to argue for Bible prophecy’s continued relevance rather than to worrying over the nature of nuclear war. Sam Swain, a nondenominational pastor, wrote what seems to be the earliest attempt to correlate the findings of nuclear physicists with apocalyptic passages in the Bible. In The Atomic Bomb and the World’s End (1946) Swain begins his analysis with Genesis: “ ‘The earth was without form and void.’ If we understand rightly the nature of atoms, as literal bullets of energy, it will be readily seen that God spoke the atomic world into being, or existence. . . . ​When man discovered how to release the power, or the energy of the atom, he literally discovered the secret of the universe, and touched the hem of God’s garment.”85 Swain respected the opinions of scientists: “Scientists tell us, ‘that the time must surely come, when the last erg of energy has spent itself. Then, whatsoever active life may be left in the universe at that time, must immediately cease.’ The declaration of Isaiah 51:6, as well as many other Biblical statements that, the only progress of the universe, including the inhabitants, is to the grave, is amply vindicated in the observations and conclusions of modern science.”86 In Swain’s view, the discovery of nuclear fission “is a monument to the patience, skill and intellectual keenness, with which men have probed into the hidden secrets of God’s atoms. As a result of their studies and researches, we know vastly more about the amazing intricacies of the universe which God made.”87 Swain did not see nuclear energy as necessarily evil, even if the Antichrist, according to Swain, will undoubtedly use atomic weapons. Swain claimed the conflagration described in chapter 8 of Revelation must be the result of an atomic bomb.88 God’s kingdom on Earth during the millennium

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that follows the Tribulation period, Swain argued, will benefit from the “blessings of atomic energy.”89 When God destroys the Earth at the end of the millennium, he too will use atomic power in Swain’s account: “Peter says, ‘That it melts with fervent heat, that all these things are dissolved.’ Dissolved! How scientific is the New Testament after all!”90 Proving that the New Testament was “scientific” was not Swain’s concern alone. This Atomic Age and the Word of God (1948) by Wilbur M. Smith, a evangelical Presbyterian preacher and faculty member variously at neo-­ Moody Bible Institute, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, also alluded to nuclear physics. Swain believed that atomic energy was so significant that it could explain God’s awesome power. Smith emphasized the importance of the bomb but saw its advent as a critical crossroads for humanity since it was now easier to eradicate human life.91 The passage in 2 Peter 7:10–­14 that suggests the end of the world shall occur by fire only confirmed that humanity was teetering on the edge of oblivion, in Smith’s account.92 Smith thought it described the effects of the bomb, arguing like Swain that Peter’s prediction regarding the “dissolution of elements” (elements being atoms in Smith’s analysis) invokes the principle of nuclear fission.93 He also devoted a short chapter to a verse in Revelation that states that men shall hide in caves and in the mountains, remarking that some believe that underground may be the only place where humans can survive an atomic blast.94 Swain’s and Smith’s interpretations of passages in 2 Peter and Revelation as presaging the bomb became standard in Bible prophecy. Billy Graham, who during this period became a leading neo-­evangelical voice, effectively incorporated anti-­Communist and apocalyptic fears along the lines of Swain and Smith into a series of revivals in 1949 that solidified his reputation as a powerful and effective evangelist. Over the course of his life, Graham evolved from a fire-­and-­brimstone preacher to a sober counselor of presidents, but he never stopped being a dispensationalist. He was more circumspect than many of his contemporaries—​­the historian Grant Wacker details how Graham even recommended that Christianity Today keep dispensationalism off its pages in order to maintain unity within evangelicalism.95 Graham never set dates or detailed specific scenarios, but he never abandoned his prophetic beliefs even if they became “more generous in tonality and emphasis, if not always in all of its technical details, as he grew older,” in Wacker’s words.96 In 1950, Graham published six of the sermons he preached at the 1949 revivals; these sermons show how he was able to use both anti-­Communism

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and images of Armageddon to encourage his audience to repent.97 Addressing an audience in Los Angeles, he cited both Communism and the threat of atomic war among the reasons America needed a revival. He thundered, “Communism . . . ​has decided against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion,” adding that it is “a religion that is inspired, directed and motivated by the Devil himself who has declared war against the Almighty God.”98 He preached that the Russians were against the United States just as much as against God. That they have the bomb, Graham asserted, suggests that Christ must be returning soon. An apocalyptic moment in one sermon made his call to conversion even more meaningful: “now for the first time in the history of the world we have the weapon with which to destroy ourselves—​­the atomic bomb. I am persuaded that time is desperately short!” For Graham this meant that “we need a Holy Ghost, heaven-­sent revival!”99 Graham was more interested in saving souls than explaining biblical passages in the light of modern science. The little attention he paid to the bomb was typical among conservative evangelicals in the 1950s; the fear of Communism and what it was doing to society came to overshadow everything else, despite the development of the H-­bomb. In the 1960s, however, conservative evangelicals again contemplated the atomic bomb alongside Communism in the light of Bible prophecy. At this time, some of the most popular scientific apocalyptic works about the bomb hit bookstore shelves and movie cinemas. Boyer suggests that concerns over fallout revitalized Bible prophecy, but a fear of Communist gains that would hasten the appearance of the Antichrist may have been more responsible. Premillennialists agonized over the possibility of Communists overtaking the United States in the arms race and cautioned against accepting Communist peace overtures. In the 1950s, prophecy analysts labeled nuclear war as inevitable because of the likely use of nuclear weapons during the battle of Armageddon. Now it was much more important to oppose anything that the Antichrist might support. In the dispensational premillennialist interpretation of Revelation, the Antichrist will usher in world government, world religion, and a false world peace, so disarmament became a more significant sign of the impending apocalypse than did armament for some Christians. This possibility animated Carl McIntire (the founder in 1941 of the NAE’s more conservative rival, American Council of Churches), who distributed a pamphlet in July 1961 on a Christian “Communist peace conference” that had been held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the previous month. According to McIntire, the conference argued for the “Commie line which Khrushchev

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has been promoting—​­‘peaceful co-­existence,’ ‘complete disarmament.’ ”100 Per McIntire, participants called for disarmament and an end to the testing of nuclear weapons and advocated that “the colonial powers” spend the money that they have been expending on armaments on ending world social ills like poverty instead.101 Denouncing nuclear war as “irresponsible,” the statement issued at the conference also suggested that the use of nuclear weapons would be “a sin against God.”102 McIntire cited the conference statement as “one of the most important developments in the over-­all Communist promotion and use of religion.”103 The distress over the Communist buildup of atomic weaponry extended to the debate over testing. In 1962 some evangelicals entered the public debate over nuclear tests, prompted by a moratorium on atmospheric testing (which culminated in the Test Ban Treaty the following year). In March of that year, a group of conservative Protestant ministers in San Francisco sent President Kennedy a telegram pledging their support of resuming atmospheric testing “because the issue in today’s world is clearly between a free world and a slave world, and because the freedom of mankind is in a very real sense dependent upon the military security of the United States of America.”104 Gabriel Courier of the Christian Herald in the following month warned in a small news brief that if only the USSR had the bomb, peace would certainly not rule the day. He cautioned that “there are things more dangerous than testing, and not testing is one of them.”105 Like McIntire, these Christians thought having nuclear weapons would be important in the future fight against the godless forces of the Antichrist. Aside from the dismay that ending testing would be giving in to Communist peace overtures, conservative Christians also struggled over how to remain Christian during a nuclear war. A number of conservative evangelicals accepted the idea being popularized in science fiction that nuclear war would not necessarily mean the End. While the reality was that few Americans were building shelters—​­over 90 percent were not building shelters or accumulating supplies according to a Gallup poll—​­the image of a family fighting off others from entering their shelter, built only to support a few, entered popular culture.106 Frank’s Alas, Babylon had a character who declared, “with the use of the hydrogen bomb, the Christian era was dead, and with it must die the tradition of the Good Samaritan.”107 The image of Americans girding themselves to do battle with neighbors over dwindling supplies was what some Christians visualized would actually happen after a nuclear attack during the 1960s.

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The fundamentalist Moody Monthly addressed those misgivings in two articles in February and April 1962 on how the Christian should respond to nuclear war. The author of these two articles, the evangelist Robert A. Cook, asserted that Christ had predicted “wars and rumors of wars” up until he returned.108 That nuclear war will occur is a fact with which Christians must contend, according to Cook. “World evangelization,” Cook pronounced, is the only purpose a Christian should have in attempting to survive an atomic blast. In Cook’s view, only the selfish would want to die and lose the opportunity to continue to spread the word of God to survivors. Far from Randy Bragg’s lamentation that nuclear war meant the Christian era was over, in Cook’s analysis, nuclear war was an opportunity to “witness,” or to serve as an example of what Christianity was all about. The implication was that, while terrible, nuclear war would not necessarily be the end of the world. Christians would still have work to do in preparing the world for Christ’s return. In the late 1960s and 1970s the United States experienced a virtual explosion of Bible prophecy publications; often these books focused on the possibility of nuclear war. Israel had been at the center of prophecy belief throughout the 1900s, especially with the establishment (or reestablishment, depending on the perspective) of the nation in 1948, which seemed to be foretold in the Bible. The 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel captured Jerusalem and expanded its boundaries, seemed to promise conditions in which the old temple could be rebuilt, an event that many fundamentalists felt was necessary for Christ to return. The culture wars swelled interest in Bible prophecy to boot. Dispensationalists had always seen social issues as end-­times signposts. Rapid societal changes in the 1960s convinced many conservatives that American society was decaying faster than ever; long-­haired hippies brazenly toked on joints, women took the Pill and unapologetically engaged in premarital sex, protests and riots beset the cities, and atheists had taken over the country as the Supreme Court ruled in 1963 against the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in schools. Even the civil rights movement prompted handwringing among white evangelicals, who preached caution to Martin Luther King Jr., as he referenced in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963). The religiosity of the civil rights movement appealed to conservative Christians, but white conservative evangelicals preached that only Christian salvation would change a racist’s heart. And American opponents of King charged him with Communism, an accusation designed to upset conservative evangelicals. Of course

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evangelicalism was hardly a hostile environment for racism, and a Venn diagram of angry white Southerners and conservative evangelicals would demonstrate great overlap between the two groups. Nevertheless, some white evangelicals joined King on marches, and ultimately the most intense battles in the 1970s and 1980s in the culture wars would be over women’s rights, school prayer, and gay rights. America’s failure to smash the Communist forces in Vietnam added further fuel to the fire ignited in the 1960s, at least in the conservative mind. Nixon followed a policy of détente, which entailed a soothing of relations with the Soviet Union through actions like signing the SALT I treaty in 1972. Among other things SALT I froze the number of missiles that each country had. To conservative evangelicals, this policy reeked of the capitulation against which figures like Smith and McIntire had warned. During this period the production of scientific apocalypticism surrounding nuclear weapons waned, but as this was an exciting time for Bible prophecy believers, premillennialist books and articles incorporated nuclear weapons into their chiliastic forecasts once again. The new prophecy writings differed from the earlier works by Swain and Smith. Writers followed geopolitical events more carefully and construed them as straight out of scripture. Post-­1950s prophecy seemed to have little hope for American society, which appeared to be falling apart and approaching judgment from God. Nuclear war was an inevitable part of the last battle of Armageddon, and bomb-­ shelter morality was no longer a topic worthy of scrutiny. Lehman Strauss, a Baptist minister and a graduate of the Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote two works that pondered the role of the bomb in humanity’s final war. In God’s Plan for the Future (1965), Strauss cited the development of weapons that could allow humanity to destroy itself: “We are witnessing, in this twentieth century, the collapse of civilization. It is obvious that we are advancing toward the end of the world. Science can offer no hope for the future blessing and security of humanity, but instead it has produced devastating and deadly results which threaten to lead us toward a new Dark Age.”109 Even the Space Race was a sign of the End, as Strauss predicted the Second Coming would prevent Americans from establishing a presence on other planets.110 By the late 1960s, science heralded no delay in the apocalypse, but it still substantiated the Bible. In The End of This Present World (1967), Strauss cited the belief of 1960s writers that the Antichrist will use the atom bomb to control the world.111 He made a similar assertion as Smith and Swain: “Man may

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have discovered how to harness and use God’s atom, but not until Armageddon will the earth know the full strength of fire from heaven. The Apostle Peter gave to us a prophecy concerning a final conflagration on the earth when the elements shall melt with fervent heat (II Peter 3:7–­14).”112 Using science to support his interpretation of Revelation and 2 Peter made sense to Strauss since “true science is never out of harmony with what the Bible teaches. When the truth of God’s Word on this subject escapes the notice of a scientist so-­called, it is because he wants it to do so.”113 Two prolific writers on Bible prophecy, Salem Kirban and Hal Lindsey, would have agreed on that point. While Kirban, like many writers before him, emphasized in Guide to Survival (1968) that the mere existence of nuclear weapons suggested an approaching apocalypse, Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) went further in detailing the events he believed would happen during the Tribulation period, including nuclear war. He predicted a geopolitical alteration in the international balance of power: a “definite realignment of nations into four spheres of political power had to occur in the same era as this rebirth of Israel.”114 Lindsey wrote that these four spheres of power will be involved in Israel somehow and will help to start the last war—​ “­Armageddon”—​­which will nearly destroy the Earth before the divine intervention at the climax of the Tribulation. Nuclear war would occur in his scenario, but just as humanity has almost extinguished itself, Christ will return, rout the satanic forces, judge all of humanity, and establish one thousand years of peace under his reign.115 Lindsey, in describing the final battle of Armageddon, repeatedly proposed that God’s judgment would take the form of nuclear war. He expanded upon the interpretations of earlier prophecy interpreters. For instance, in Ezekiel it is said that Gog will have fire rained upon it—​­Lindsey predicted that this would be in the form of nuclear missiles.116 Revelation, he recounted, tells of entire cities being destroyed; most likely, in his estimation, it will be by nuclear weapons.117 Lindsey, at the end of The Late Great Planet Earth, urged his readers to “look for some limited use of modern nuclear weapons somewhere in the world that will so terrify people of the horrors of war that when the anti-­Christ comes they will immediately respond to his ingenious proposal for bringing world peace and security from war.”118 Lindsey took the dispensationalism he learned at Dallas Theological Seminary and made it simple to understand; The Late Great Planet Earth’s sensationalistic prose drew in Americans hungry for an explanation for why things seemed to be going so wrong by 1970. In that decade, Americans

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likewise explored Eastern religions and “new” religious movements like neopaganism, but conservative evangelicals benefited more than any other group from this round of religious seeking.119 Lindsey’s book was the best-­selling nonfiction book of the 1970s, and subsequent Bible prophecy writers had trouble ignoring his interpretations. His financial success no doubt galvanized many of his successors. Lindsey built a media empire in the wake of his hit, with radio appearances, speaking engagements, his own television programs, and many more books. To what extent profit motivated Lindsey and his imitators is hard to estimate, but we shouldn’t conclude that Bible prophecy authors weren’t also sincere. Lindsey and other successful Bible prophecy writers likely told themselves that their success signified how many souls they were saving. Dispensationalist detractors also might not have liked Lindsey’s tendency to gloss over the details, but his formula of using current events to explain Bible prophecy was not new. Using fiction to sell Bible prophecy was also not original in the 1970s, but more fictional books surrounding the end-­times began to appear beginning in that decade. Kirban’s next book, 666 (1970), was a fictional description of the Tribulation and Second Coming of Christ. As in Lindsey’s account, good and evil wage Armageddon with nuclear weapons: for instance, the Chinese-­ Russian army nukes Europe.120 Kirban tendered a complicated scientific explanation for the upheavals that the Earth will experience during the Tribulation, attributing the catastrophes to both nuclear explosions and pollution. A character warns the Antichrist that “recent nuclear explosions combined with air pollutants have caused some sort of cosmic chaos. The moon’s rotational period is now matching that of the earth and this is eliminating the tidal drag. . . . ​The sun is continuing to exert tidal pull, further slowing down the earth. . . . ​[E]ven more catastrophic, the expansion of the sun in its dying throes will cast off an intense heat . . . ​so intense that it might kill everything on earth.”121 Kirban was not alone in his creativity. In Before the Last Battle—​ ­Armageddon (1971), Arthur E. Bloomfield, a Methodist minister, wrote that Habakkuk 1:10 reveals that the Antichrist will have a weapon superior to nuclear bombs that will enable him to take control of the world: “He [the Antichrist] will heap UP dust and take it. He will take a stronghold by throwing dust at it! . . . ​[T]he commentaries were written before anybody knew anything about radio active dust. . . . ​Today scientists could tell us the exact nature of that dust.”122 Bloomfield said that “fallout” is what destroys Babylon in Jeremiah: “we do not know who these Medes are that are used to destroy

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Babylon. They evidently will have some kind of atomic power because Revelation indicates a ‘fall-­out.’ ”123 However willing he was to apply scientific causes to events during the last days, Bloomfield did not go as far as Swain and Smith in their initial elation over the power of the atomic bomb: “the Day of the Lord is no ordinary judgment. It is not a calamity that comes as a result of natural causes, or the acts of men. It is not, for instance, the atomic bomb. It is not even divine retribution on a wicked generation. It is the consummation of redemption.”124 Tim LaHaye, a pastor who trained at Western Theological Seminary in Michigan, similarly backed away from the idea that nuclear war would necessarily be the manner of humanity’s judgment in The Beginning of the End (1972). LaHaye reported, “Although this world will be destroyed some day (and perhaps by a gigantic nuclear explosion—​­see 2 Peter 3:10–­16), it will not be accomplished by man, but by God himself.”125 Though he was a cofounder of the Institute of Creation Research in 1972, which funds scientific research from a creationist perspective, LaHaye would continue to emphasize supernatural over naturalistic clarifications of scripture throughout his career. Despite these misgivings, two more fictional accounts about the Tribulation period and the battle of Armageddon took the use of nuclear weapons to fulfill Bible prophecy for granted and sought other ways to use science in explaining events that would occur during the end-­times. Gary G. Cohen, a converted Jew and a theological professor at a conservative evangelical seminary, described the worldwide conflict in Civilization’s Last Hurrah (1974) that enables the Antichrist to take power as arising from Israel’s anger over pollution from Jordan’s nuclear-­power reactor. As plagues besiege mankind, Cohen expounded the means through scientific phenomena instead of through supernatural events as in other accounts: a meteorite turns the oceans red, the killer locusts are just a mutant form (Melanoplus Gargantuus), and the Antichrist is able to be resurrected because he is cryogenically frozen.126 At the end, Christ appears amid a meteor shower.127 The resurgence of Bible prophecy writing seemed to make even more sense as the 1970s wore on, with further crisis in the Middle East, the center stage for apocalyptic events. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel once again stood victorious against Egypt and Syria. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raised oil prices while Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo on the United States (because of its support of Israel), showing how challenging the Arab nations could be when united. The U.S. economy took a

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nosedive, due to the high oil prices, the high cost of the Vietnam War, and various agricultural shortages. The Watergate scandal, in which operatives of President Nixon’s reelection campaign broke into Democratic headquarters in order to tap phones and discover campaign secrets, resulted in Nixon’s resignation in 1974. But this resignation came only after Americans had read transcripts of tape recordings of Nixon in the Oval Room, peppered with the phrase “expletive deleted.” When Jimmy Carter assumed the presidency in 1977, he governed a jaded public, which had suffered through a long war only to lose it and which was repeatedly lied to by the president who had promised to end it. Events during Carter’s presidency contributed to the end of détente. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was experiencing internal conflicts that the Russians felt were a security threat, thwarted congressional passage of SALT II, which would have limited the nuclear arsenals of the two countries even further. These tensions culminated in the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, ending the period of détente that had begun under Nixon. The termination of détente coupled with new public concern over the ecological effects of nuclear energy resulted in heightened fears over nuclear destruction in the 1980s. Carter’s presidency also signaled the arrival of born-­again Christians in politics. But his successors would be Republicans indebted to the interpretations of people like Hal Lindsey, and Carter himself would come to represent the failure to stand against Communism in conservative evangelicals’ opinions. By the end of the 1970s, Carter’s example and the popularity of books like Lindsey’s gave rise to portrayals of evangelical Christians and their end-­ times beliefs in secular media. One such example is in The Stand (1978) by the horror writer Stephen King. The popular novel chronicled the demise of the world due to a man-­made plague. One of the main characters is Mother Abagail, an evangelical Christian who heads a community devoted to opposing a demonic figure named Randall Flagg. According to Mother Abagail, “God had brought down a harsh judgment on the human race. Some might argue with such a harsh judgment, but Mother Abagail was not among their number. He had done it once with water, and sometime further along, He would do it with fire. Her place was not to judge God, although she wished He hadn’t seen fit to set the cup before her lips that He had.”128 The narrative bears out her conviction that the End, even if man-­made, was a battle between cosmic forces of good and evil. For most secular doomsday writers in this time period, God was not so obviously present.

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From 1945 to 1979, Americans strove to make sense of the bomb through the apocalyptic. While scientific apocalypticists were initially at a loss as to how to understand a weapon that could destroy all life, by the 1970s they had articulated a full-­fledged apocalyptic complete with visions of judgment followed by a secular millennium. While hopeless visions of nuclear war eradicating humanity made appearances throughout this period, especially within British fiction, more prevalent among Americans were stories of how nuclear war could cleanse humanity of its failings. These voices of dissent were not enough to subvert American faith in science and technology. This was true of religious apocalypticists, as represented by dispensational premillennialists, during this period as well. As compared to scientific apocalypticists, premillennialists embarked on a different project after the advent of the bomb. They had been living with the threat of the End for a long time. Premillennialists did not have to struggle to find meaning and purpose in a fragile existence; the bomb was yet more proof that the end-­ times were near and that God had chosen America to champion his cause. Nevertheless, the atomic bomb transformed both apocalyptics. Nuclear war satisfied the desire to give Darwin’s creation story an endpoint, either hastening or ending man’s evolution. It invigorated the religious apocalyptic by making it undeniably applicable to modern life. Though one urged continued faith in science and technology to escape the nuclear threat and the other advised having more faith in Christ, both helped Americans come to terms with an ever-­present threat of annihilation.

Chapter 4

Spaceship Earth

Americans had already begun thinking about how they might damage the Earth beyond repair when Neil Armstrong strode across yet another world that could be colonized. Our planet earned the nickname “Spaceship Earth” during the 1960s’ Apollo missions that culminated in Armstrong’s moon walk in 1969. Americans went to space to exhibit their technological prowess to the Soviets, but the moon missions taught Americans about their own fragility. Astronauts brought home photographs of a blue marbled planet suspended in a black void. The snapshot was more powerful than any verbal explanation that everyone lived in a finite world, interconnected despite metaphorical iron curtains and their real-­life concrete counterparts. Stories of American footprints preserved forever in the moon’s dust (due to its insubstantial atmosphere) created the illusion of conquest, but the bomb had already shown the hollowness of any such victory. Struggling with the apocalyptic significance of the bomb had been the immediate concern of scientific and religious apocalypticists after 1945; by the early 1960s, an environmental crisis loomed as much as a nuclear war. An awareness of the interconnectedness of all life started to crystallize after the invention of the bomb.1 Suddenly worldwide and man-­made destruction of people and their surroundings became possible. While the potential damage to the ecosystem from nuclear testing did not become an issue until the late 1950s, the bomb nevertheless conditioned how conservation-­ minded Americans approached ecological issues. With the “one world or none” rhetoric in the background, local concerns over land use transmuted

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into broad concerns over how American technology affected the nation as a whole and, by the 1960s, the entire world. Most historians locate the roots of the modern environmental movement in the late nineteenth century when Americans articulated more narrow concerns over the fate of land in the West. As white Americans settled the West in the 1800s—​­with the official end of the frontier occurring in 1890 according to the U.S. Census Bureau—​­visitors and new residents wrote of the beauty they saw there, seeing it as an “unspoiled” wilderness that needed to be protected from urbanization and industrialization. Explorers like George Catlin wrote of their journeys across the plains in the 1830s before any major settlement of the West—​­Catlin in particular painted and wrote about Native Americans. Meanwhile, figures like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were frontrunners of the American Romantic movement, depicting nature and wilderness as spiritual places where humans could rejuvenate their souls. As Americans pushed westward, the risk to the natural beauty of the last frontier troubled some nature lovers. The first major American book to call attention to what human action was doing to the environment was Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action. Personal experience with destructive agricultural practices in Vermont inspired George Perkins Marsh, a lawyer and scholar with a love for nature, to write this book describing the environmental impact of humans in America, Europe, and Asia.2 Published in 1864, Man and Nature was one of the few voices of protest during the era of industrial optimism. Marsh suggested that the environment was becoming more degraded as humans pursued economic and technological progress: “Purely untutored humanity, it is true, interferes comparatively little with the arrangements of nature, and the destructive agency of man becomes more and more energetic and unsparing as he advances in civilization, until the impoverishment, with which his exhaustion of the natural resources of the soil is threatening him, at last awakens him to the necessity of preserving what is left, if not of restoring what has been wantonly wasted.”3 Marsh’s conviction that “civilized” humans changed everything they touched was at the heart of the debate between two rival groups over the fate of the West.4 Known in historical literature as conservationists and preservationists, both agreed that the government should intervene before white Americans developed all of the lands in the West. John Muir, a naturalist who helped found the Sierra Club in 1892, led the preservationist movement,

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lobbying the federal government to set aside lands in the West to be protected from human activity. No less concerned with the misuse of land were those who wanted to protect the land, but not as a pristine wilderness. Conservationists believed the government should take steps to ensure the rational, scientific use of Western lands for the benefit of humanity. Their goals conflicted with those of preservationists as they pursued projects such as the Hetch Hetchy Dam, which flooded a scenic valley in Yosemite National Park. Despite preservationist attempts to block the dam, conservationists won the day, with Congress passing a bill in support of the project in 1913. To Muir the dam would destroy one of “God’s temples”; to Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot under President Theodore Roosevelt, the dam was representative of using natural resources responsibly for human betterment.5 In spite of their differences, those in the conservationist and preservationist movements were both optimistic, thinking it was not too late to save the wilderness from industrial encroachment. Conservationists in particular believed in the technological advancement of the United States, albeit in an orderly fashion. From their perspective, they managed natural resources according to scientific principles on economic grounds in addition to aesthetic ones. They had some trepidation about resource depletion, which is why scientific management was called for, but they were not, on the whole, pessimists.6 However, when Pinchot and his allies tried to sway the public to support conservationist causes, they attracted constituents who wanted to save wilderness and natural resources for more virtuous reasons.7 The moralistic approach to saving the nation’s resources had a more lasting impact on the environmental movement than did the conservationist emphasis on using scientific methods to allocate U.S. natural resources. While the strict laissez-­faire orientation of the government in the 1920s led to the setting aside of conservationism, an ecological disaster in the 1930s prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to include environmental policies in the New Deal. This man-­made disaster, the Dust Bowl, was, in the opinion of the historian Donald Worster, “the most severe environmental catastrophe in the entire history of the white man on this continent.”8 The Dust Bowl happened because Americans planted their homesteads in a dry region, removing the native grasses that historically had prevented such dust storms in times of severe drought. However, those who suffered from its effects experienced it as an uncontrollable act of God.9 In Topeka, at least one resident saw in the Dust Bowl a sign of the impending return of Christ: “Watch for the

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Second Coming of Christ. . . . ​God is wrathful.” Residents stood on the sides of streets holding signs announcing the End was near.10 The U.S. government in the guise of the Soil Conservation Service, a New Deal agency, aided the harried farmers and tried to end the abuse of the plains lands by encouraging farmers to stop growing crops and establishing guidelines for using public lands in the plains for grazing cattle. The government also purchased the worst affected lands with the intention of restoring their integrity.11 Worster sees the Dust Bowl as significant not only in its severity but also for the effect it had on the conservation movement: “in the 1930s, largely as a direct consequence of the Dust Bowl experience, conservation moved toward a more inclusive, coordinated, ecological perspective. A concern for synthesis and for maintaining the whole community of life in stable equilibrium with its habitat emerged.”12 The Dust Bowl may have shown Americans that abuse of the environment could lead to disaster, but the bomb introduced Americans to the threat of a far more severe, worldwide environmental disaster.13 It had the potential to eradicate all life, flora and fauna. The surge of interest in environmental issues after World War II was not only due to the influence of the bomb. The condition of their surroundings interested Americans as part of a general rise in living standards. Clean air and water became another “amenity” for the postwar affluent to pursue.14 The first works to express concern over the environment after World War II, nonetheless, were in the tradition of conservationism. Aldo Leopold, who served in the U.S. Forest Service and pioneered the field of game management at the University of Wisconsin, wrote one such book. In speeches and writings during the 1930s and early 1940s, Leopold expressed the idea that a scientific viewpoint alone was not enough to save the wilderness from human interference: “Let no man jump to the conclusion that [he] must take his Ph.D. in ecology before he can ‘see’ his country. On the contrary, the Ph.D. may become as callous as an undertaker to the mysteries at which he officiates.”15 Although Leopold died in 1948 from a heart attack, his posthumous A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There (1949)—​­called by one historian a “sacred text” of the 1960s environmental movement—​­rejected the idea that economics should dictate the way humans use the land. A Sand County Almanac set the stage for a flurry of postwar books that questioned the effect humans were having on their environment.16 Calling for a “land ethic,” Leopold asked Americans to recognize that the concept of land as

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property to be exploited is “wrong.” Rather, out of a love and respect for the nature that sustained humanity, Americans should include the land and everything on it in their idea of “community.”17 Leopold’s Sand County Almanac was the culmination of his conservation work in the interwar years, successfully bridging the gap between the conservation and preservation movements by arguing that land had an aesthetic value but could be responsibly used. Two other writers moved even further away from conservationist rhetoric than did Leopold by outright asserting that humanity was having a deleterious effect on the environment. In particular, both William Vogt in Road to Survival (1948) and Fairfield Osborn in Our Plundered Planet (1948) expressed concern over a growing world population and the indiscriminate use of natural resources. Each came to the issue from studying animals; Vogt was an ornithologist who had edited the Audubon Society magazine, while Osborn was a businessman who became the head of the New York Zoological Society. Resorting to apocalyptic language to describe the problem of overpopulation, Vogt wrote, “There are too many people in the world for its limited resources to provide a high standard of living. By use of the machine, by exploitation of the world’s resources on a purely extractive basis, we have postponed the meeting at the ecological judgment seat. The handwriting on the wall of five continents now tells us that the Day of Judgment is at hand.”18 Osborn expressed alarm over the number of people in proportion to the amount of cultivable land but added to the list of potential environmental problems the use of chemicals like the pesticide dichloro-­ diphenyl-­ trichloroethane (DDT). His theory of the underlying problem was akin to the concept of ecology developed later in the twentieth century; Osborn declared, “Blind to the need to co-­operating with nature, man is destroying the sources of his life. Another century like the last and civilization will be facing its final crisis.”19 Nevertheless, Osborn, as a businessman, had more hope than Vogt that capitalism could rectify the abuses that resulted in environmental deterioration.20 In the shadow of the atomic bomb, postwar writers like Vogt and Osborn may have felt compelled to compare the degradation of the environment to the effects of the atomic bomb. For Vogt, the abuse of the environment was tantamount to the bombing of Hiroshima: “Where human populations are so large that available land cannot decently feed, clothe, and shelter them, man’s destructive methods of exploitation mushroom like the atomic cloud over Hiroshima.”21 Osborn, on the other hand, suggested that environmental deterioration was

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possibly even worse than the threat of nuclear war. He wrote that in the midst of World War II he became concerned about the neglect of “the other war, the silent war, eventually the most deadly war, [which] was one in which man has indulged for a long time, blindly and ­unknowingly. . . . ​It contains potentialities of ultimate disaster greater even than would follow the misuse of atomic power. This other war is man’s conflict with nature.”22 By the late 1960s, hardly anyone questioned the idea that Americans, and humanity in general, were destroying their environment, and writers no longer needed to justify their concern with the environment even when the seemingly more immediate threat of nuclear destruction portended. Science writers addressing environmental issues during the 1940s and 1950s tended to stress the problems of overpopulation and depletion of resources over issues like pollution.23 Even so, as early as the 1940s, two incidents in the United States highlighted the problem with air pollution. The first major smog incident in the United States was in Los Angeles in 1943; a similar air inversion occurred in the small industrial town of Donora, Pennsylvania, five years later. Still, these concerns remained local in the first two decades after the war. Population continued to be at the forefront of 1950s books that considered the impact of humanity on the environment. Osborn published another book, The Limits of the Earth (1953), which argued for a balance between the amount of resources and population while a geneticist, Karl Sax, in Standing Room Only (1955) suggested that humanity’s goal should be a population level that permits a “decent life” for all.24 These early works did not come close to having the impact of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), which moved beyond overpopulation and brought another issue to the forefront of the environmental movement. A marine biologist and a previously best-­selling author, Carson wrote a readable and engaging tract on the threat of pesticide use to the environment. The result was a book that was on the New York Times best-­seller list for thirty-­one weeks. Most historians date the modern environmental movement to the publication of Silent Spring, which instigated an environmental fight against more than just the traditional scourges of resource abuse, overpopulation, and the degradation of wilderness.25 Her book opened with an apocalyptic vision, a fictional portrait of a town where, presumably, DDT had been liberally used: “Some evil spell had settled in the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. . . . ​No witchcraft, no

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enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.”26 Like Vogt and Osborn before her, Carson used the fear of the bomb to drive home the point that chemical pesticides were dangerous substances: “Strontium 90, released through nuclear explosions into the air, comes to earth in rain or drifts down as fallout, lodges in soil, enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there, and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being, there to remain until his death. Similarly, chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death.”27 After Carson, environmentalist writers no longer couched ecological threats in nuclear terms. This was in part due to the success of her book in bringing environmental issues to the public but also because of political developments that dampened nuclear fears. In 1963, the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information signaled this transition by changing its name to the St. Louis Committee for Environmental Information.28 With nuclear tests gone underground (and the easing of Cold War tensions), the environmental crisis overwhelmed the panic over fallout. Post-­Carson, scholars and journalists published a flurry of books and articles on the environmental “crisis,” offering analyses of its causes and possible solutions. Barry Commoner, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, was one of the first to move away from seeing overpopulation as the cause of environmental ills. In Science and Survival (1966), he asked, “Could we cure these difficulties by calling a halt to science and new technologies?”29 Despite Commoner’s attempt to change the subject, a book on overpopulation, the entomologist Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), was the only other environmental book as influential as Carson’s at the time. With three million copies sold within its first decade, Ehrlich’s book is the most popular book on the environment to date.30 In Ehrlich’s estimation, overpopulation caused water and air pollution, would instigate potential climate change, and could cause a nuclear war over dwindling land and resources. He suggested drastic solutions such as forced birth control, which was the source of much criticism. Ehrlich was one of the first to place the blame for the condition of the world environmental crisis on Americans: “We have decided that we are the chosen people to steal all we can get of our planet’s gradually stored and limited resources. To hell with future generations, and to hell with our fellow human beings today! We’ll fly high now—​­hopefully they’ll pay later.”31

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After Carson and Ehrlich, popular writers on the environment no longer had to begin their writings by trying to persuade readers that the environment was in danger. Two articles that appeared in the influential journal Science took the environmental crisis as a given and analyzed its root causes. Medievalist Lynn White Jr., in a 1967 article, pointed to Protestantism’s influence on the way Americans related to nature as creating the conditions for abuse; Genesis resulted in Westerners taking God’s command to “subdue” the Earth in Genesis literally.32 Meanwhile, Garrett Hardin, an ecology professor, explained the problem of overpopulation in “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968). His article contained a lively metaphor about the destruction of a common pasture through the selfish actions of individuals who overgraze their own cattle at the expense of the entire community.33 With Science granting environmental concerns credibility and Carson and Ehrlich energizing the public, Richard Nixon found upon taking office in 1969 that environmentalism would be a theme of his presidency. John C. Whitaker, his secretary of the interior, said later that Nixon’s administration was taken aback by the sudden demand for action on environmental issues.34 In addition to the success of popularizers like Carson and Ehrlich, several well-­publicized incidents in the 1960s emphasized that Americans needed to make changes in the way they treated their surroundings. Disasters such as the death of eighty people due to smog in New York during the summer of 1966; oil spills in the English Channel and near Santa Barbara, California, in 1967 and 1969, respectively; the burning of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio in 1969; and the media coverage of the dying of Lake Erie in 1969 verified the apprehensions of scientists like Carson and Ehrlich.35 The furor over environmental issues motivated the first nationwide Earth Day on 22 April 1970. Teach-­ins on the Vietnam War inspired Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin, to hold a similar event on the environment. Despite little funding, the event took on mammoth proportions as the idea inspired grassroots organizing.36 A reporter who has written on the history of the environmental movement, Philip Shabecoff, described it as “chiefly and surprisingly lighthearted. Participants picked up litter, planted trees, and adorned themselves with flowers.”37 Corporations like Dow Chemical, Ford Motor Company, and Commonwealth Edison became involved too; they provided money for speakers, created advertisements touting their environmental awareness, and gave contributions in support of Earth Day events.38 Nelson’s office had officially sanctioned those events. Others, inspired by the tactics of the New Left, took a more activist approach. One group, for

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example, gave the Atomic Energy Commission an award for “Colorado Environmental Rapist of the Year.”39 The dynamics of that first Earth Day mirrored the dynamics within American culture itself. The innocuous Earth Day protests were in the vein of pleas to “make love, not war.” By 1970, hippies had suffered c­ ommercialization—​ ­long hair, bell-­bottoms, and folk music were mainstream. Even American soldiers in Vietnam had abandoned regulation in favor of longer locks and peace signs. Lounging in the grass while barefoot and toking a marijuana cigarette no longer effectively undermined the establishment, but they were a way to commune with Mother Nature. The mainstream nature of the first Earth Day reflected the co-­opting of the counterculture. The counterculture appealed to many Americans because they were feeling disaffected. Traditional authorities had let them down. The collapse of the Cold War consensus during the Vietnam War occurred just as Americans were rethinking their relationship with the natural world. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, revelation after revelation about nefarious governmental activities demoralized Americans. In 1968, Americans realized the war wasn’t going so well when North Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive and managed to occupy the U.S. embassy courtyard in Saigon for six hours. At the end of the following year, a news report on the My Lai massacre hit the papers, and Americans learned about an incident in March 1968 where U.S. soldiers had killed hundreds of unarmed villagers, including children, on the pretext that they were Vietcong. In June 1971, newspapers published articles based on a leaked government file—​­the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War through 1967. The documents divulged that the government had purposefully misled the public about the lack of progress during the war. Despite these disclosures, which deepened the political divide between liberal and conservative Americans, for a time during Nixon’s presidency conservative, liberal, and leftist Americans shared a desire to heal environmental ills. The first Earth Day may have been benign as a result, but American distress over irreversible damage to the environment was genuine. Environmental writers underlined the idea that the combination of pollution, overpopulation, and resource depletion meant that humanity was close to causing its own extinction. In an article originally published in Harper’s toward the end of 1969 and reprinted in a book of essays published in preparation for Earth Day, the journalist John Fischer wrote that the problem of human survival could provide coherence to liberal arts programs, which he saw as foundering without an overarching system of beliefs. Fischer outright

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suggested that the end of humanity could be close: “for the first time in history, the future of the human race is now in serious question. This fact is hard to believe, or even to think about—​­yet it is the message a growing number of scientists are trying, almost frantically, to get across to us.”40 That same year, the apocalyptic tone of environmentalists had become so pronounced that the man who coined the term “eco-­cide,” Barry Weisberg, complained in Beyond Repair (1971) that “the apocalyptic tone of the environmental crusade is itself a major expression of the social order responsible for biological imbalance. The restoration of natural balance depends today upon the destruction of that social order and the birth of a new poetry of human relations.”41 Predictions of doom had become so prominent that Weisberg, whose book argued that capitalism had led to the current environmental conditions, could see environmental apocalypticism as being so conventional as to be a part of the “system.” However apocalyptic the tone of environmental writers’ work became, from the point of view of inspiring legislation, the environmental movement was successful in the early 1970s. Because of popular agitation on behalf of environmental issues, President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by reorganizing other existing departments. The EPA banned DDT in 1972 and spent most of the rest of the decade attempting to regulate pollution. Despite Nixon’s decision to bypass Congress in order to create the EPA, legislators themselves passed eighteen environmental acts during the 1970s, including laws to control air and water pollution and to protect (and define) endangered species.42 Even as the environmental movement made progress in cleaning up the landscape, scientists debated whether pollution could cause even greater distress to the environment besides producing filthy air and water.43 Investigation into the effects of pollution from supersonic jets resulted in the proposal that their exhaust was hurting the ozone layer. Two scientists in 1973 looked into the effect of other chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Used in aerosol sprays, CFCs eventually drifted into the stratosphere, where ultraviolet light broke the compounds down into their constituent molecules, including chlorine, which destroys ozone. The media alerted the public, and the ensuing pressure convinced the U.S. Congress to give the EPA the power to ban CFCs from aerosol cans in 1977.44 As scientists gathered evidence that human activity could deplete the ozone layer, climatologists in the 1970s warned of the possibility of a new ice age, citing previous instances of climate change. This time, it would not

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necessarily result from a natural cycle. The menace of fallout and renewed attention to pollution in the 1960s raised the possibility that humans could affect something so complex as the climate.45 Scientists published several popular works in the 1970s about the threat of global cooling even as the debate over whether industrial emissions would cause cooling or warming wore on.46 These popular works contained no real solutions to the problem of climate change, nor did they argue definitively that the forthcoming ice age would be man-­made. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist who would later become an expert on global warming, published The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival (1976) along with a writer from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. They pointed to historical instances of climate change, contending that the world needs to plan for future shortages in agricultural production.47 Similarly, Reid A. Bryson and Thomas J. Murray’s Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World’s Changing Weather (1977) explained that, in the past, ice ages had led to drought. Such climate change could recur rapidly, the two meteorologists instructed, leading to mass starvation.48 They repudiated the idea of a “greenhouse effect,” caused by pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, writing, “Carbon dioxide does not change the amount of energy coming from the sun, and it does not reflect the sun’s energy back to space. Therefore it can’t change the average temperature of the whole system—​­can’t make it warmer.”49 While ice ages may be cyclical, they also pointed to the effect that solid particles in the atmosphere could play in depressing temperatures.50 Their advice was to limit population and be more wary of the human impact on the environment. Despite these publications, the issue of climate change barely penetrated the public consciousness until the 1980s, when scientists reached a consensus that the planet’s climate was actually experiencing a warming.51 This initial confusion over whether temperatures were rising or falling because of human action was not as silly at the time as it seems today. Extrapolating the level of air pollution into the future led to forecasts of many more industrial particulates in the atmosphere that could block the sun’s rays and blacken the skies. However brief, the debate over cooling versus warming had a lasting impact, as critics of global warming seized on it as evidence that the science couldn’t be certain.52 Critics of environmentalism emerged in greater numbers toward the late 1970s in reaction to the popularity of the environmental movement. As the epidemiologist Melvin A. Bernarde in Our Precarious Habitat (1970) asserted: “No one would argue that air pollution, radioactive fallout, or

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chemical insecticides washed into a water supply, to take a few examples, are beneficial; but I would suggest that the physiological effects of these environmental pollutants are not so well established that the popular purveyors of gloom and doom can write about them with such lack of impunity.”53 The criticism of the environmental movement during the 1970s was related to the increasingly contested nature of science. Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions appeared the same year as Carson’s warning that indiscriminate use of DDT would lead to a “silent spring.” After Kuhn, the historian Charles E. Rosenberg explains, “science was routinely seen as a source of ideology, legitimating existing hierarchies—​­a previously unindicted coconspirator in a world of hegemony and exploitation—​­as well as an even more precise body of knowledge about the natural world.”54 Environmental questions about the effects of technology and postmodernist analyses of science were part of the same effort to scrutinize the conventional wisdom that supported the established power structure. The decline of scientific authority also made space for opponents of any scientific conclusion to be heard. As Americans recognized that consensus, not the scientific method in isolation, established what was scientific truth at any given moment, they questioned those conclusions by attempting to appeal to the scientific method itself. Specialization in science further muddied the waters for Americans outside scientific culture. Scientists had promoted the scientific method in the late nineteenth century by distinguishing it from other enterprises, like theology. But there were fields in which the traditional scientific method didn’t apply, as in physics where theory sometimes preceded data.55 Specialization made science even more confusing and inaccessible to most Americans. With professionalization came a language and a body of knowledge to be mastered only by experts. Fields like physics became more esoteric and counterintuitive. As ordinary Americans felt more estranged from the sciences because of their complexity and high bars for participation, scientists themselves seemed less accessible.56 This contributed to doubts from both liberals and conservatives in science’s ability to craft an improved life for Americans. A minority of scientists agreed. Commoner expressed dismay with the state of contemporary science in Science and Survival (1966) and The Closing Circle (1971). Both books postulated that an unquestioning acceptance of technology and overspecialization by scientists caused the environmental problems of the United States. Commoner asked, “Are we really in control of

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the vast new powers that science has given us, or is there a danger that science is getting out of hand?”57 The way humans use science was not the only problem, in Commoner’s analysis. Scientists were too isolated from each other’s fields and could no longer view the forest for the trees, just when they needed to judge whether the forest was healthy enough to survive.58 Science fiction writers were again ahead of the curve when it came to embracing such criticisms of science and technology. Beginning in the late 1940s, they addressed issues like man’s attempts to control nature, overpopulation, and resource depletion. Greener Than You Think (1947), a satirical apocalyptic tale by Ward Moore, an American writer, is remarkable among early environmental fiction for ending with the extinction of humanity. Moore’s novel is about the invention of a chemical called Metamorphizer, which speeds the growth of all types of grass. Grass starts growing uncontrollably, taking over first the United States where a female scientist had invented and marketed the chemical, then North America and finally the rest of the world. Despite attempts to stanch its growth, including the use of targeted atomic bombs, only grass remains. Just as prior fiction and nonfiction authors had connected the potential extinction of the human race to the vagaries of evolution, one character notes: “Man, they said, could not adapt himself to the Grass . . . ​but insects had, fishes didn’t need to, and birds, especially those who nested above the snowline, might possibly be able to. Undoubtedly these orders could in time produce a creature equal if not superior to Homo sapiens and the march of progress stood a chance to continue after an hiatus of a few million years or so.”59 Moore’s novel was in the vein of early nuclear fiction that expressed fear about mankind’s durability in the technological era. In the 1950s, as in nuclear fiction, stories and novels with environmental themes tended more to the dystopian than apocalyptic.60 The “end of the world as we know it” is a better description of these works, but in the following decade, these same themes appeared as extinction-­ level predicaments. Harry Harrison, an American comic-­book illustrator cum writer, was responsible for Make Room! Make Room! (1966), which inspired the Charlton Heston film Soylent Green (1973).61 Though Make Room! Make Room! predated Ehrlich’s popular work The Population Bomb, its predictions were just as shocking. One character links overpopulation, pollution, and resource scarcity in an angry monologue that integrated all of the current environmentalist issues: “So mankind gobbled in a century all the world’s resources that had taken millions of years to store up, and no one on the top gave a damn or listened to all

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the voices that were trying to warn them, they just let us overproduce and overconsume, until now the oil is gone, the topsoil depleted and washed away, the trees chopped down, the animals extinct, the earth poisoned, and all we have to show for this is seven billion fighting over the scraps that are left, living a miserable existence—​­and still breeding without control.”62 The movie, while lackluster, did contain a scene at the end meant to horrify viewers.63 Heston’s character spends the film investigating the protein source (soylent green) the world has come to rely on during the era of scarcity. In the final moments, a bloodied and sweaty Heston hams it up as his character reveals the results of his inquiries, screaming “soylent green is people!” Even as some futurist writers anticipated environmental issues that would become popular by the end of the 1960s, other writers took their lead from Carson’s Silent Spring.64 In the 1970s, as national anxiety about American decline surged amid revelations about presidential lies and losing wars, works appeared that pictured the eradication of all human life. George Alec Effinger, an American writer, offered one such story in 1971 based on Carson’s warnings about pesticide use. Titled “Wednesday, November 15, 1967,” the short story is in the form of the notebook of the last man on Earth. This character attributes the end of Homo sapiens to various environmental crises such as pollution and the widespread use of pesticides. Musing that the world will be left to the insects, the protagonist remembers an ominous conversation he had with a neighbor when he was a child: “Sounds like that bug killer your dad ordered kills off more’n just bugs. Seems like it kills off all the stuff that ought to be eatin’ the bugs natural, like birds. And then the bugs start breedin’ so fast, why, if any of ’em don’t mind the poison then in a little while you got millions of ’em that don’t mind it. But that don’t bring the birds back.”65 Thomas M. Disch, an American writer, poet, and sometime theater critic, also offered an account of the extermination of humanity, but in his work The Genocides (1978), humanity itself is the equivalent of annoying insects to an alien race that supplants Earth’s flora and fauna in favor of its own plants. A character reflects on the seemingly simple defeat of Homo sapiens that it had resembled nothing more than “spraying the garden.”66 Later the same character directly echoes Carson when he notes, “Except for the noise of the leaves snapping open (and that was over in a day), it was a silent spring. There were no birds to sing.”67 As the novels and stories that Carson’s work inspired attest, by the end of the 1960s, just as nonfiction about environmental problems became gloomier so did fictional portraits of environmental disasters become outright

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apocalyptic. No longer did pollution and overpopulation simply threaten to end the world as we know it, it threatened to end all life on Earth. And it was not simply fiction that Carson inspired. 68 Authors like Disch surrendered to the national mood that the United States was on an uncontrollable path to doomsday. Even national achievements like landing on the moon became suspect as some Americans theorized it was nothing more than deft governmental propaganda filmed on a soundstage.69 Most authors and films still found ways to escape the End by using premillennialist tropes. Science fiction continued to disseminate the strategy for saving humanity through Edenic primitivism, or the idea that people from developing countries were living the most environmentally friendly lifestyles.70 The romanticization of the American Indian that had begun in the late nineteenth-­ century environmentalist movement showed its staying power in such visions. As in nuclear fiction, this emphasis on transforming humanity’s lifestyle fit into visions of a coming millennium upon total environmental collapse. Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) grants its readers a glimpse of a future with a restored environment where people live in peace.71 Just as a nuclear war could expunge sin, nature was also redemptive, saving the physical world along with the souls of its humans. An example of this is Frank Herbert’s The Green Brain (1966). In it an unnamed but deadly pesticide (an implicit reference to DDT) is being used in South America to combat insects; Brazilian authorities have declared “Carsonite” literature to be subversive. Insects, however, respond to the policy of extermination by attempting to communicate with humanity. Millions of beetles work in concert to create an ersatz human body. Known as the “Brain,” this group-­mind entity warns humans: “Without substances produced by . . . ​ insects, and other forms of life, your kind of life would perish. . . . ​Break the chain and all die. The more different forms of life there are, the more life the greenhouse can support.”72 While the quote provides a pretty good definition of ecology, the notion of insects becoming intelligent recalls the nuclear mutants of the 1950s. Writers and filmmakers cast radioactive mutants as saviors, as replacements for the human species, and as agents of judgment. Science fiction easily altered that template to replace radiation with pollution. In the 1970s popular interest in telepathy and other psychic powers appeared in science fiction as potential evolutionary advancements that could allow humans to save themselves without the help of mutated species. A science fiction writing duo, William Jon Watkins and E. V. Snyder, published a traveling novel, Ecodeath (1972), where innate teleportation and time-­

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abilities allow two men to spare a remnant of humanity from certain death. A killer organism that had evolved in a sewage plant would have been a worldwide extinction event but for these two men engineering the secular Rapture of a select group to a time in the future when the organism was dead and pollution had dissipated.73 The premillennialist patterns endured even when authors thought they were playing with secular cultural trends. The heady space visions of the 1960s and 1970s encouraged authors to imagine humans escaping to another planet.74 The success of the Apollo program prompted predictions of space tourism, a moon base, and astronauts on Mars by the early 2000s. Ethan I. Shedley turned that optimism on its head in Earth Ship and Star Song (1979). In Shedley’s book, humanity leaves Earth because of global warming resulting from pollution, which leads to “an ecological spiral that will eventually make the Earth as barren and hostile as Venus. To live we must consume more energy—​­for breathable air, for food, for bearable temperatures—​­and the more energy we consume the worse the situation gets.”75 When testing an interstellar drive based on the controlled creation of black holes, humans destroy an alien telepathic species, which sends a message throughout the galaxy to avenge their destruction against Homo sapiens. Other sentient beings hunt humans throughout the galaxy as they try to find a world where they can settle. Just as in nuclear fiction, a biologically based original sin means humanity is destined to destroy everything in its reach.76 While more than a few American science fiction writers suggested that something was inherently wrong with human beings, few science fiction writers who wrote environmental disaster novels placed the blame on the United States as the world’s primary polluter. In British eco-­fiction, characters had no trouble locating the blame for disaster in their former North American colony. Though Britain has its own history of environmentalism, especially through the tradition of forestry in the British Empire, after World War II England’s environmental movement also experienced resurgence in the wake of Carson’s work.77 The foremost British figure in the new transatlantic environmental movement was E. F. Schumacher, a German immigrant to England. His book Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Matter (1973) articulated the idea that ever-­increasing environmental growth might not be an advisable goal for a society concerned about its impact on humanity. Rather, Schumacher proposed a style of living that focused on the interpersonal: buying locally, living in small towns, inventing small technologies available to everyone, and using only what one needs.

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Schumacher’s ideas were alien to most Americans for whom economic growth had become a given in the decades after the war. Nowhere was the opposite of “small is beautiful” practiced more than in the United States, home to large cars, Big Gulps (debuting in 1976), and shopping malls. Though Schumacher was a transatlantic figure in the environmental movement, his analysis may have made more intuitive sense in Britain, where the growth rate of the economy lagged behind other developed nations, and high unemployment had become a feature of modern life.78 For Britons, too, the United States was a more natural source of apocalypse, while Americans tended to see themselves as representing both the best and the worst of humanity. The English writer John Brunner wrote a series of books projecting a pessimistic future and located their events in the United States, ground zero for greed, overpopulation, and pollution.79 Americans even cause the end of the world in Brunner’s The Sheep Look Up (1972).80 Brunner no doubt thought his projections were warnings of what the United States could be if it did not arrest its ways. He wrote in a 1973 introduction to Wylie’s The End of the Dream (1972), “but what you have here is a prophecy in the most ancient sense of all: not a prediction of what certainly will come to pass, but a description of what is likely to come to pass unless people mend their ways. You can’t define Wylie as ‘a voice crying in the wilderness’ because—​­hell, where’s the wilderness? It’s been logged off and used as a dump.”81 Like Brunner, American science fiction writers who envisaged eco-­ disaster cast themselves in the mold of prophet. Thomas Disch, in discussing the environmental crisis, claimed a serious role for himself and other science fiction authors in the introduction to The Ruins of the Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future (1971). Science fiction writers, Disch avowed, “have played a significant part in the very urgent business of saving the world. Not just because they have illuminated, in their stories here and there, central aspects of the crisis now upon us, but because for two decades, while most of us listened, enraptured, to the siren-­songs of Technology, they have never ceased to warn of the reefs awaiting us on the other side of the song.”82 While many of these “prophets” did not have faith that technology could prevent an eco-­ disaster, some exceptions existed. Arthur Herzog’s Heat (1977) has more faith in technology than in human nature. The novel is about a “runaway greenhouse effect” that threatens to make Earth into a Venus-­like planet.83 Herzog’s website claims that his novels are examples of “near in fi,” a genre of fiction of his own design “that combines theoretical sci-­

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scientific phenomena with realism.”84 In his 1977 “near in sci-­fi,” a sociologist laments American apathy: “If you’re relying on the help of the general public to conserve energy and reduce thermal pollution, I don’t think you’ll get it. . . . ​They won’t take the word of scientists that a calamity impends. They will not reduce their standard of living to cut down energy consumption—​ ­not willingly, at least.”85 In the end, scientists find a technological solution where mirrors are used to redirect heat into space. Unlike Herzog, most writers of eco-­disaster novels and stories questioned the effect that unconstrained scientific and technological advancement had on the environment just as nuclear-­fiction writers criticized scientists for pursuing nuclear research without regard for consequences in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1980s and 1990s, this mistrust of technology would lead environmental writers to conclude that only a spiritual transformation within humanity could resolve the ecological crisis. Conservative and fundamentalist Protestants shared this willingness to examine the role of scientists and technologists in creating environmental problems. When conservative evangelicals started to consider environmental issues in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they suggested that a Christian worldview that stressed stewardship could serve as a counterweight to the exploitative attitudes that had accompanied technological growth. They also pushed back at claims that Christianity could have contributed to a polluted environment. A creationist professor of natural science at Concordia College, John W. Klotz, in Ecology Crisis: God’s Creation and Man’s Pollution (1971), condemned Lynn White Jr.’s charge that Protestantism was responsible for Americans’ treatment of the environment; White, according to Klotz, was misreading the Bible. Klotz turned the tables on those who might claim the scientific method made science superior to religion: “Science lacks the standards God’s Word provides—​­standards which we shall discuss shortly. It has only one criterion for the good, and that is ‘Does it work?’ Such a criterion leaves a great deal of room for the man who argues he can profit by exploiting the environment at the expense of others and of future generations.”86 Klotz was not a dispensationalist but his views formed part of a broader dialogue among conservative evangelicals, including premillennialists, about White’s thesis. Premillennialists did not so much concern themselves with finding a solution to the environmental crisis. They did not deny it existed, but it was one of many social trends that confirmed their prophetic beliefs. Dispensationalists spoke less about stewardship than other evangelicals, but they were never quite as dismissive of environmental problems as critics have

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insisted. Apocalyptic interpreters seized on overpopulation and pollution as harbingers of the Second Coming. Salem Kirban, an independent fundamentalist evangelist, wrote Guide to Survival in 1968. His dedication thanked Ehrlich and two authors of a book on pollution for their insights: “To Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich, whose book THE POPULATION BOMB brought to sharp focus one of the critical problems the world now faces. To Edward Edelson and Fred Warshofsky, whose book POISONS IN THE AIR, made me aware of the growing danger air pollution is bringing to our country.”87 Kirban did not merely list pollution and overpopulation as signs of the apocalypse; in the fashion of environmental nonfiction writers, he discussed their causes and future effects. Air pollution, in his analysis, could lead to a cooling trend because of the amount of dust blocking sunlight.88 He chastised people who did not take environmental issues seriously in ecological terms: “Some falsely believe that the sky is unlimited. They believe because of the vast amount of space up there that pollution will never have an irreversible trend or represent a danger to the world. . . . ​The earth is basically a closed system. The waste-­disposal process we have produced clearly has limits.”89 Kirban even predicted famines and the depletion of resources, pointing out that the United States uses a disproportionately large amount of natural resources.90 Such an observation would impel a nonfiction writer to warn humanity to change its ways or perish. Kirban offered these remarks as evidence that Christ must be coming soon, having no hope that humanity could change. Yet warnings of the End could still convert individuals before the Rapture. Kirban’s book seems to be the earliest attempt to view environmental issues in the light of Bible prophecy. But 1970, the year of Earth Day, saw conservative evangelicals addressing environmental issues along with the mainstream media, a trend that continued into the mid-­1970s.91 Lynn White’s thesis of 1968 preoccupied many of these writers, all of whom concluded that White misinterpreted the Bible, failing to see that God charged man to care for the Earth. For instance, an editorial in Christianity Today (under the leadership of Harold Lindsell, a mild dispensationalist) titled “Fulfilling God’s Cultural Mandate” (1970) defensively mentioned stewardship even while suggesting that God will undoubtedly prevent humans from killing themselves: “And even though we believe Christ will return before man can utterly destroy himself, future generations have as much right to enjoy this world—​ ­and make it fruitful—​­as we. Christians must ensure this right and so fulfill the Biblical commission to subdue and replenish the earth.”92

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The preeminent popularizer of Bible prophecy in the 1970s, Hal Lindsey, also accepted the idea of an environmental crisis. In The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), Lindsey, like Kirban, used environmentalists’ predictions of a dire future to suggest the imminence of Armageddon. He wrote at the beginning of his book, “Scientists tell us today that we are approaching a time when the ocean may not be able to sustain life anymore. The Secretary General of the UN recently told us that man has perhaps ten years to solve the problem of survival. He pointed out the three great crises which are unique to this generation—​­the problem of nuclear weapons, the problem of over-­ population, the population explosion, the problem of pollution of our air and water.”93 While Kirban was content to simply point to environmental deterioration as a sign of the end-­times, Lindsey read into biblical verses possible descriptions of environmental damage. Lindsey interpreted Revelation 9:18 by using the racist language of an older generation of scientific apocalypticists: “A terrifying prophecy is made about the destiny of this Asia horde. They will wipe out a third of the earth’s population (Revelation 9:18). The phenomena by which this destruction of life will take place is given: it will be by fire, smoke (or air pollution), and brimstone (or melted earth).”94 Elsewhere, in explaining a passage in Isaiah, Lindsey again read air pollution into the Bible: “Isaiah predicts in Chapter 24 concerning this time: ‘Behold, the Lord will lay waste the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.’ ‘The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants.’ (Perhaps this refers in part to water and air pollution.)”95 Like Kirban, Lindsey also used Ehrlich as an authority on overpopulation, quoting Ehrlich as suggesting that humanity was already in the end-­times and that it was impossible to prevent people from starving to death or dying in degraded environmental conditions.96 This accepting attitude toward environmental scientists extended also to science fictional portraits of the final days. Kirban offered a fictitious portrait of the Rapture and the Tribulation period in 666 (1970). His work reads like a science fiction novel, describing pollution and overpopulation problems. Like the characters in Make Room! Make Room! Kirban’s characters subsist on hard-­to-­get protein cakes. After one character asks God’s blessing over a meal of protein cakes, another responds, “You have the nerve to thank God for this trash? If God were God would he let us starve and eat junk they call food that’s made from crude oil? Would he let us overpopulate so greatly that we live in horrible square cubes two and three hundred stories high?”97 The

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answer from premillennialists in the 1970s was yes: God would allow humans to pollute the world through their sins. Though overpopulation was the most prominent environmental theme in 666, Kirban also depicted global cooling caused by dust from drought and air pollution.98 After 1970, the number of premillennialist writers including environmental discussions in their books rose. The Baptist writer Joe T. Odle in Is Christ Coming Soon? (1971) relied upon Ehrlich as an expert as Kirban and Lindsey had, agreeing with Ehrlich’s conclusion that overpopulation and pollution are related.99 Lindsey continued to discuss pollution in his Bible prophecy works, albeit to a lesser degree, in Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth (1972) and The Terminal Generation (1976).100 Tim LaHaye, a fundamentalist preacher who in the 1990s would become known for the best-­selling Christian fiction series Left Behind, also took environmental problems seriously in The Beginning of the End (1972). He quoted the president of the World Bank on the population explosion and cautioned that pollution “will smother earth life.” As a result of its treatment of the environment, LaHaye concluded, “mankind is on such a runaway course that portends the end of this age.”101 The Bible prophecy writers Willard Cantelon and Chuck Smith also discussed pollution, overpopulation, and resource depletion in their works. Both, however, offered new interpretations of prophecy in the light of environmental issues. Cantelon in The Day the Dollar Dies (1973) read a particular passage of Revelation as predicting climate change: “In Revelation 8:7, he [John] spoke of a third part of the trees on earth dying: The third part of trees was burnt up. An astronaut predicted in 10 years’ time the sun’s rays would be diminished by 50% if man continued to pour into the heavens his ceaseless clouds of poison.”102 Cantelon referenced global cooling again in an interpretation of Amos 8:9–­11, which, according to Cantelon, predicted a darkening of the skies as well as famine at the end of days.103 Smith agreed with the interpretations of Lindsey, Odle, and Cantelon of the Bible’s prophetic books in What the World Is Coming To (1977). He too offered new interpretations of biblical passages. Referring to Rev. 8:8–­9, Smith wrote, “This great mountain of fire falling into the sea sounds like ­pollution. . . . ​If an atomic war breaks out . . . ​[i]t would become possible that the sea will become polluted, and the third part of the creatures die, and the third part of the ships be destroyed.”104 Smith also believed Rev. 8:10–­11 was an affirmation of environmentalists’ anxiety over water pollution.105 Smith must have kept track of science news as he discussed damage to the ozone layer even before the media publicized it in any major way; Smith saw

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ozone depletion predicted in Revelation. In his examination of Rev. 16:8–­11, when the fourth angel’s vial is opened, Smith referred to the belief that supersonic transport and CFCs might be damaging the ozone layer: “Some scientists estimate that in about eight years this ozone blanket will be depleted to the extent that stepping outdoors will be dangerous. Any exposure to the sun would cause extreme burns and ‘scorch men.’ ”106 The project of using new scientific research to prove Bible prophecy was as alive in Smith’s book as it had been at the beginning of the twentieth century. Conservative evangelicals took advantage of fiction’s accessibility to reach new audiences in their quest to modernize Bible prophecy. This became increasingly true in the 1970s, when writers other than Kirban fictionalized Bible prophecy. These treatments depicted environmental disasters during the Tribulation period. An evangelical and converted Jew, Gary G. Cohen, introduced his novel Civilization’s Last Hurrah (1974) with the scenario of a nuclear reactor in Jordan polluting the Dead Sea, which contains fertilizers that the world needs: “It’s immoral to contaminate the Dead Sea’s fertilizer minerals when a starving, overpopulated world is crying for food.”107 Cohen used environmental issues in a particularly creative way. Premillennialist nonfiction and fiction depicted the Antichrist as requiring a literal mark or tattoo—​­the 666 mark or the mark of the beast—​­to buy and exchange goods. When, as many premillennialists believe, the 666 marks become painful in the days leading up to Christ’s return, Cohen offers a novel explanation for the condition: “They claim that a heavy ozone isotope, an ecological pollutant, is chemically attacking the black light dyes now imbedded within the skin of all those marked with the 666. By means of some fantastically complicated chemical reaction that has apparently taken months and years to ­germinate . . . ​people are suffering intense pain.”108 Premillennialists accepted that the environment was degraded, but they also believed that when Christ returned, ushering in the millennium, he would restore the world to a pristine state. Kirban, in his work of fiction about the millennium, 1000 (1973), portrayed the dissipation of pollution as soon as Christ returns.109 Another evangelical writer and speaker, George Otis, wrote a nonfiction book speculating about life during the millennium for Christians. Millennium Man (1974) cited the Club of Rome, a group of scholars concerned about the future of the world. Otis reported to his readers, using all capital letters, that the organization had identified a number of global threats that meant Earth could no longer support human life.110 Otis wrote in a euphoric tone of the millennium: “You can almost see the clear

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waters, brilliant skies, singing hills, exploding greenery and brilliant Millennium flowers. No more choking weeds; no devouring insects; no more killing droughts.”111 Otis’s fantasy wasn’t too different from the reveries of science fiction writers in which humanity overcame its flaws and lived in a pristine environment sometime in the future or on another planet. Still, the implication of Otis’s beliefs was that Christians do not have to take the threats of resource scarcity and pollution seriously. The Second Coming would play the role that teleportation or a purging of the species played in science fiction: “Before all of earth’s gears lock up for want of lubrication, this age will close. The oil supplies which God placed in the planet will prove adequate to squeak through this era.”112 While premillennialist Christians responded to the surge of interest in environmental issues by incorporating the various problems of pollution, overpopulation, and resource scarcity into their visions of the End, in general conservative evangelical interest in environmentalism waned toward the middle of the 1970s. Articles in Christianity Today and Moody Monthly on environmental topics became scarce. A fictional work that appeared in 1978 presaged the skepticism that conservative evangelicals exhibited toward environmental issues in the 1980s. Donald L. Moore’s Mirrors of the Apocalypse represented population control as a policy of the Antichrist. Most children are aborted, and a population-­control magazine is called 666, because the optimal number of “immortals” was 666 million.113 The decreased concern with environmental issues themselves (as opposed to the uses they might be put to) is apparent from the evangelical reaction to the Three Mile Island incident. When the reactor came close to meltdown in 1979, there was little alarm from conservative evangelicals. Nancy M. Tischler, an evangelical woman who was in the area of Three Mile Island, wrote a brief article describing her experience for Christianity Today. She was neither angry nor moved to anxiety about the safety of nuclear energy. Rather, she concluded that “Three Mile Island can only hurt our bodies; it never threatened our immortal souls. . . . ​Then let us offer a prayer of thanks that the power of Three Mile Island cannot compare to the power of the Holy Ghost.”114 A conservative Methodist, David L. McKenna, offered his thoughts on Three Mile Island in the same issue of Christianity Today. While he brought up old fears of resource depletion, McKenna concluded that “deeper down than nuclear plans of technological dreams, the philosophy of unquestioned

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scientific authority died at Three Mile Island.”115 McKenna’s obituary for “scientific authority” was a precursor to the skepticism that conservative evangelicals would bring to environmental issues in the 1980s. The change came about as environmentalism, in the wake of legislative success and popular acceptance in the early 1970s, politicized, a trend that conservatives regarded as a plot to undermine capitalism based upon sketchy scientific evidence. In a 1971 book review in Christianity Today, the reviewer, Wilbur L. Bullock, found fault with liberal Christians who wrote about the environmental crisis for failing to realize that environmental problems could mean that Christ is returning: “Secular writers on the problems often tend to be apocalyptic in their assessment of pollution, overpopulation, and famine. Some even quote Revelation, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and other ominous-­ sounding portions of Scripture. . . . ​[I]sn’t it just possible that the end times predicted in Scripture and the catastrophes we are being warned of by the ecologically oriented may have something in common?”116 Bullock’s review emphasized the shared concerns of scientific and religious apocalypticists in the postwar period. Liberal Christians were no less concerned with the environment, but they avoided apocalyptic conclusions, feeling hopeful that popularizing a Christian attitude toward the environment could help people reject a selfish view of nature. Premillennialists lived in an ever-­present era of crisis; sin had doomed the world since the fall of Adam and Eve. When scientists agreed that the world was falling apart, religious apocalypticists did not have to strain themselves to incorporate these concerns into their visions of the coming end. Environmental issues buttressed the argument that Christ was the only salvation from the problems dogging society. Environmentalists similarly used apocalyptic language to win converts; telling people that the world was in crisis and that famines, energy shortages, and illnesses from chemicals were inevitable were ways of urging action. Salvation was implied in writers’ proffered solutions. The world would fall apart unless the U.S. government banned DDT, unless Americans implemented population control, and unless society accepted ecological concepts. This is not to argue that environmentalists cynically invoked the apocalypse to achieve their goals. The sense of crisis was real. In expressing their alarm, scientific apocalypticists unwittingly used similar tactics as religious apocalypticists, whose sense of crisis, while immanent, was no less real. In scientific apocalypticism, fiction writers tended to be more pessimistic than their nonfictional counterparts. Individual action was rarely enough to made environmental doom. Science fiction save humanity from a man-­

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resorted to scenarios that uncannily resembled the dispensationalist outline of the end-­times. While a number of science fiction writers, such as Isaac Asimov and James Blish, had a science background, most were writers with a layman’s interest in science. They were not obliged to offer solutions, and in their self-­assigned roles as prophets, the gloomier the vision, the more likely their work would have an impact on their readers. Still, science fiction writers and scientists were two sides of the same coin; the overlap between the two groups was significant enough that they shared assumptions about how the world came into being and what science could work in its most benevolent forms. If scientific apocalypticists who wrote nonfiction offered salvation to humanity, the scientific apocalypticists who wrote fiction sat in judgment of mankind. Like conservative evangelicals who emphasized the inherent sinfulness of every individual (which could be the cause of pollution), science fiction writers concluded from the behavior of humans that Homo sapiens was innately degenerate. Their almost mystical faith in the power of evolution to create a new, superior species of man was akin to religious apocalypticists’ belief that acceptance of Christ could change an individual’s behavior. In both cases, humans were unable to save themselves on their own. If nonfiction writers unconsciously emulated the style of the religious apocalyptic, science fiction writers unconsciously accepted similar philosophical premises to premillennialist writers. Combined, fiction and nonfiction writers of the scientific apocalyptic offered an analogous apocalyptic vision to that of religious apocalypticists. While scientific apocalypticists would have found the concerns of premillennialists unrelated to their own, as environmental issues became mainstream, religious apocalypticists seized on the works of scientific apocalypticists in order to bolster their biblical interpretations. Using the conclusions of scientists was a way to legitimize the Bible in a modern society by showing how the events in Revelation were possible. Bible prophecy experts were not alone in this enterprise; conservative evangelicals also became interested in “creation science” in the 1970s, employing science to prove that a literal interpretation of the Bible could be true. Whereas Bible prophecy was not a threat to a scientific worldview on its own, using science to support creationism meant that conservative Christians had to challenge what scientists would consider to be fact, such as the age of the Earth. The result was a view of science not as an objective pursuit of truth through experimentation, but rather as subject to interpretation. This was a noxious notion to scientists,

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but the issues raised by environmentalists and antinuclear activists helped undermine the supposedly objective authority of science. It was scientists who created the bomb and invented pesticides and combustion engines while failing to anticipate the consequences. The end of the 1970s saw nuclear and environmental concerns become interlaced. People protested nuclear reactors, fearing the release of radioactivity, after anxiety over nuclear reactors became widespread following Three Mile Island. Radioactive contamination joined the list of environmental pollutants threatening human health. When, in the early 1980s, scientists popularized the idea of “nuclear winter” (the idea that nuclear war could completely destroy the ecosystem), the merging of the two issues became complete. This occurred even as environmentalism, which even Nixon had embraced, became a “liberal” issue. As a result, both scientific and religious apocalypticists reevaluated the environmental problems like overpopulation and pollution that had seemed such obvious threats in the 1970s.

Chapter 5

The Politics of Science and Religion

The image of nuclear war in the public mind evolved over time. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, panic was what Americans had to protect themselves against. The educational filmstrip “Duck and Cover,” played in public schools, told children everything would be okay if they rolled to the ground, covered their heads, and waited for adult authorities to tell them what to do. After the hydrogen bomb, the portrait was of slow, quiet death under sunny skies belying the deadly fallout slowly killing everyone. That picture lasted longer, but the concept of nuclear winter erased it; the replacement was a gray deathscape under darkened skies where nothing could grow. Prior visions of nuclear war had not excited political opposition, but nuclear winter kicked off an intense ideological debate over the global effects of technology. Both scientific and religious apocalypticists became parties to the debate. At a 1983 conference in Washington, DC, scientists unveiled the theory of nuclear winter. The astronomer Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich presented the finding that a nuclear war could cool the Earth’s surface and destroy the ozone layer. Nuclear winter was only one way that human activity could dramatically alter the Earth’s climate. In the same year, a panel appointed by the U.S. Academy of Sciences reported the possibility of carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed the findings in a separate report.1 Although scientists in the 1970s had warned of the possibility of climate change, these organizations’ official statements transformed the tenor of the environmental and antinuclear movements. While scientific apocalypticists discovered more reasons to support

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nuclear and environmental reforms, conservative Christian apocalypticists found new reasons to be suspicious of such reforms. Conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists became politicized during the 1980s as a response to the cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s, such as expanded women’s rights, increased divorce rates, and liberal sexual education. Fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson entered politics, and the division between neo-­evangelicals (who had been more involved in society) and fundamentalists that had dated to the 1940s became less distinct. Jerry Falwell established the Moral Majority, a conservative lobbying group, in 1979, and Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, ran for president in 1988. The result was that a growing number of Bible prophecy writers not only suggested that scripture predicted nuclear war but also argued for support of President Ronald Reagan’s policies. Reagan’s electoral success in the 1980s was due to his ability to form a coalition among neoconservatives, economic conservatives, and religious conservatives. This alliance repudiated the more moderate conservatism of Eisenhower and Nixon. The anti-­Communism of neoconservatives, the antiregulationism of economic conservatives, and the moralism of religious conservatives propelled the Reagan Revolution, which challenged Communism and celebrated American exceptionalism. Reagan united these three groups around the conclusion that the 1960s and 1970s had seen the United States veer off the path of righteousness and greatness. Andrew Hartman, in his 2015 monograph on the culture wars, explains that changes in American society emanating from 1960s activism created a gap between conservative Americans who believed that Americans had viciously cast off tradition and values and liberal Americans who believed the 1960s had thrown the curtains wide on historical injustice and intolerance.2 The culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s filled in that gap. As they allied against liberalizing trends, Reagan’s conservative supporters challenged the scientific authorities that had created a consensus on environmentalism in the early 1970s. They had different reasons for opposing the emerging scientific consensus that environmental concerns were now global. Neoconservatives combated the antinuclear and environmental movements on grounds that they would weaken the United States, and fiscal conservatives worried about the economic impact of environmental protection. Religious conservatives rejected the implication that humans could so thoroughly disrupt God’s plan for the world. For premillennialists, that included Judgment Day.

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Worsening relations with the Soviet Union further affected scientific and religious apocalypticism. The détente of the 1970s had mollified fears about a devastating nuclear war, but détente had ended by the time Reagan entered office in 1981. Reagan promised to make America great again; his vision for America included taking a strong stance on the Soviet Union, which he believed was still bent on world domination. His message was not new; Barry Goldwater had delivered the same lines in his 1964 presidential campaign. Lyndon Johnson had responded at the time with a minute-­long ad, aired only once, that showed a Goldwater-­led future: a little girl slowly picks the petals off a daisy, counting them as she drops them to the ground. A verbal nuclear countdown overlays her sing-­song counting before a bright flash and mushroom cloud replace her on the screen.3 Though the ad would be probably more shocking to Americans today than it was then, it was hardly subtle in conveying that the right wing of the Republican Party was too dangerous to hold the highest office in the land. Liberals were no less apt to believe this in 1981, even if many more Americans agreed with Goldwater and Reagan after Johnson’s and Carter’s political failures. Shortly after he was sworn in, Reagan told the press that the Soviets, in pursuit of this empire, would resort to all sorts of chicanery to achieve world revolution, including deceit and criminal activity.4 The first half of Reagan’s first term “was a period that seemed at the time—​­and still seems—​ ­the most dangerous one in Soviet-­American relations since the Cuban missile crisis,” according to the historian John Lewis Gaddis.5 In his first term, Reagan accelerated the arms race by building up the nuclear arsenal and pushing an antiballistic missile system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), or “Star Wars.” He deployed strong rhetoric regarding the Soviet Union, calling it the “evil empire” in 1983 during a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. Publicly Reagan intimated that nuclear war was “winnable” (SDI was his attempt to make this a reality)—​­an idea that undermined the efficacy of mutually assured destruction (MAD).6 When the media reported statements Reagan made about nuclear weapons being used in the final battle of Armageddon, the news coverage heightened the perception that Reagan might start a nuclear war. The “nuclear-­freeze” movement of the early 1980s, which advocated a halt to nuclear-­weapons construction in the early 1980s, was a reaction on the part of Americans to their government’s renewed militancy. In June 1982, protestors held a nuclear-­freeze rally at Central Park in which between 500,000 and 750,000 participated.7 Although the 1980s began with revived

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anxiety over nuclear war, by the end of the decade, Reagan’s series of summits with Gorbachev that resulted in arms reductions by 1987 had quelled nuclear fears. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, apprehensions about nuclear war once again ebbed. The end of détente in 1979 drove a new wave of nonfiction exploring the results of a nuclear war. Two of these works, one by the ecologist Bruce D. Clayton and another by the journalist Jonathan Schell, illustrate the two different approaches to the topic. The title of Clayton’s book, Life After Doomsday: A Survivalist Guide to Nuclear War and Other Major Disasters (1980), conveyed his opinion that a nuclear war need not eradicate the human species.8 He earned a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Montana by studying accidental spills of irradiated material. A logical result of Clayton’s studies was that he also became interested in how a nuclear war would impact ecosystems. Reviewing the scholarship, Clayton decided that too much of it was fatalistic and concluded that someone needed to write a book that offered practical advice for surviving a nuclear war. His rather optimistic work gives instructions on such practicalities as how to build a shelter or how to make a homemade fallout meter. Schell’s The Fate of the Earth (1982) became a key text for the pessimistic assessment of nuclear war. Schell echoed the arguments of earlier scientific apocalypticists by urging the world to dismantle its nuclear arsenals in order to prevent “the utterly meaningless and completely unjust destruction of mankind by men.”9 He also approached the topic from the standpoint of the ecological effects of a nuclear war, an approach that dominated discussion of nuclear war during the 1980s. He maintained that “the nuclear peril is usually seen in isolation from the threats to other forms of life and their ecosystems, but in fact it should be seen as the very center of the ecological crisis.”10 Believing that the threat of nuclear war was more important than any other problem facing humanity, Schell criticized Christians for imagining that God is in control of events and suggested that the popularity of science fiction was due to a desire to see in the stars a way to resolve the nuclear dilemma.11 Only humanity could save itself and the Earth, he contended, implying that humans make life meaningful by choosing to unite in the face of such a threat. Like previous scientists writing about existential threats, Schell’s focus was on converting readers to his cause. Schell’s book anticipated Sagan’s announcement that a “nuclear winter” could follow a nuclear war by speaking of the possibility of cooling and the destruction of the ozone layer from a full-­scale nuclear war.12 Until the 1983

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conference that made it official, most Americans were unaware of the potential of global cooling from a nuclear war, even after Schell’s book. Ehrlich wrote, “When many of us read Jonathan Schell’s book, The Fate of the Earth, we were very much impressed by the moving way in which he presented the case, but I suspect that most biologists, like myself, thought it was a little extreme to imagine that our species might actually disappear from the face of the planet. It did not seem plausible from what we knew then.”13 Ehrlich likely exaggerated his shock for effect, as he was no stranger to alarming extrapolations from milder theories. Still, the astonishment over nuclear winter was real for most Americans, and Clayton’s survivalism became even less plausible after “nuclear winter” was publicized. Schell’s book, on the other hand, portended the direction that nuclear-­war analyses would take during the 1980s. American fiction also reiterated the ongoing debate over how destructive a nuclear war would be. Survivalist fare along the lines of Clayton’s Life After Doomsday came in the form of Dean Ing’s Pulling Through (1983), a novel that a fellow science fiction writer, Spider Robinson, urged readers to keep in a safe and accessible place in case of nuclear war.14 Most science fiction authors, however, did not question the scientific consensus on issues like nuclear winter. Depicting limited nuclear war, large enough to decimate civilization but small enough to avoid nuclear winter, became a popular way to approach nuclear war in fiction. Limited nuclear war devastated U.S. society in American books like Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka’s Warday and the Journey Onward (1984), Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Wild Shore (1984), and Michael Armstrong’s After the Zap (1987).15 In both The Wild Shore and After the Zap, characters suggest that the world is experiencing more snow than prior to the war, implying that a small version of nuclear winter had occurred even with a limited nuclear war. Other novels and short stories depicted a full-­scale nuclear winter.16 In American films and novels, though, it rarely led to the extinction or the near-­ extinction of humanity; one exception is This Is the Way the World Ends (1986) by James Morrow, an author who has written literary as well as science fiction.17 In Morrow’s novel, a nuclear war destroys all life on the planet, but six people are spared in order to answer for the crimes of their generation at a trial conducted by the future unborn (who will never have a chance to live). The theme is that of nuclear war rendering all of human existence pointless; one of the unborn tells a defendant: “When you turn the human race into garbage, you also turn history into garbage. ‘Why did we bother to invent

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writing?’ they ask. ‘Or spinning jennies? Why did we trouble ourselves with the cathedrals?’ ”18 Nuclear policy is an example of the irresponsibility of the generation that caused the extinction of humanity, the unborn argued; although they knew what was at stake, humanity had placed its hopes in MAD or criticized it without offering any other solution.19 There is no secular millennium and no possibility that nuclear war might be a refining crisis for humanity in a work like Morrow’s.20 The novel’s conclusions illustrate why other writers were so intent on finding ways to restore meaning to human life in the wake of the bomb. American-­made films in the early Reagan years also sought to illustrate the dire effects of nuclear war and yet never resorted to total despair. At the beginning of November 1983, Testament first appeared in theaters in New York, going into wide release the following month.21 It showed the aftermath of a nuclear war by focusing on a family in a suburb of San Francisco. Slowly everyone in the small town dies of radiation, though the mother and two of three children at the center of the plot still live at the end. This movie did not get the same attention as another nuclear-­war film, The Day After, which aired on the ABC television network on 20 November 1983.22 The event garnered one hundred million viewers and became a source of great controversy in the media.23 It depicted a group of individuals in Lawrence, Kansas, dealing with the consequences of a nuclear war. The movie included graphic scenes of injuries, deaths from radiation, and acts of violence on the part of scared survivors. Both films made it clear, as Schell had, that a nuclear war would be catastrophic and pointless, although they had been made too early for the inclusion of nuclear winter. Directly after The Day After’s airing, ABC News had a special roundtable moderated by Ted Koppel that included former secretary of state Henry Kissinger; the conservative intellectual William F. Buckley; Carl Sagan; former secretary of defense Robert McNamara; the author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel; Reagan’s secretary of state, George Schultz; and a former national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft. The views of these men illustrated the controversy over both U.S. nuclear policy and the potential effects of a nuclear war. Sagan used the forum to announce that an actual nuclear war would be much worse, resulting in nuclear winter. Kissinger, in contrast, complained that the movie was simple-­minded, while Buckley suggested that the point of the movie was “to launch an enterprise that seeks to debilitate the United States.”24 Neither film was as nihilistic as British films on the same subject in the

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1980s. Testament suggested that there was nobility in fighting for survival, implicit in the final scene when the mother decides not to kill herself and her two children to end their suffering. The Day After remains ambiguous as to the scale of the war, and most of the main characters are still standing at its conclusion.25 By contrast, British films of the same time period like Threads (1984) and When the Wind Blows (1986) suggested that survival was highly unlikely and perhaps not even desirable.26 Where Testament celebrated the will to survive and The Day After ends with many survivors, albeit sick and injured, Threads and When the Wind Blows were consistent with the British apocalyptic tradition of H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and Nevil Shute. British nuclear-­themed novels of the 1980s echoed the despair of these films.27 American exceptionalism, in the sense of a distinctive American religiosity in a secular West, still expressed itself through both the scientific apocalyptic and religious apocalyptic. This was true even as scientists expanded the list of existential threats facing Americans. In 1981, global warming, which scientists had been seriously exploring alongside global cooling since the 1970s, made the front page of the New York Times due to the efforts of Jim Hansen, a physicist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. His research concluded that global warming would be apparent by the end of the millennium.28 In 1983 reports from the U.S. Academy of Sciences and the EPA followed, confirming the possibility of global warming and largely ending the scientific debate over whether global cooling or warming was more likely. In the mid-­1980s, there was renewed concern over the damage humans were causing to the ozone layer. Although chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) had begun to be phased out in the 1970s, the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Joseph Farman, described seasonal ozone depletion over Antarctica in the May 1985 issue of Nature; the following year, a team of NASA scientists confirmed his results.29 Some doubted whether humans could be causing this effect, but as the journalists Seth Cagin and Philip Dray report, “others recalled [the American astrophysicist] Michael Prather’s hypothesis that ozone depletion might not always be linear, that it would under certain conditions occur suddenly, with catastrophic effect, and they could not help but feel a chill, for they were reminded of the kind of total breakdown of a natural system that modern environmentalists like Rachel Carson had warned of for so long.”30 In 1988, an unusually hot summer led to increased attention to the greenhouse effect. One hot summer may not have been clear evidence of global

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warming to scientists, but it made a compelling news story. High temperatures, droughts, and powerful hurricanes led to media stories about global warming, suggesting that the world could expect more of the same in the future. Time magazine chose Earth as “planet of the year” for 1988 in lieu of its usual “person of the year” cover article, explaining that the choice “had its origin in the scorching summer of 1988, when environmental disasters—​ ­droughts, floods, forest fires, polluted beaches—​­dominated the news.”31 The accumulation of new environmental concerns led to a second Earth Day in 1990 in which 200 million people in 140 nations participated in activities.32 Environmentalists grumbled that corporations had co-­opted it in order to promote themselves in advertising as being “green.”33 While the media spotlighted global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer, scientists added another issue to the list of global environmental problems during the 1980s: species extinction. The biologist E. O. Wilson edited a volume of articles on biodiversity in 1988 that had originated from a 1986 conference in Washington, DC. Wilson wrote in “The Current State of Biological Destiny” that “biological diversity must be treated more seriously as a global resource, to be indexed, used, and above all, preserved.”34 He expressed concern over the fast rate of species extinction, suggesting that humans would miss out on the benefits of a diverse population of other species. David Challinor, also a biologist, was more blunt in the epilogue to a volume about the possible impact of the loss of diversity: “The Western world in particular has been out of harmony with its environment and through temporary technological superiority has imposed its destructive stands of affluence on the rest of the world. . . . ​To keep the Earth reasonably habitable for humans in the centuries to come, natural forces will have to lower the human population and reduce the indiscriminate exploitation of the natural world.”35 Warning Americans and the rest of the world about what would happen if they did not institute particular policies no longer seemed sufficient to nonfiction writers. By the end of the 1980s, these environmental menaces overshadowed the pall of nuclear war. Toward the end of the decade, the environmentalist writer Bill McKibben published The End of Nature (1989), which detailed the mounting environmental problems of climate change and ozone-­layer depletion as well as older concerns such as the effects of DDT and acid rain. Mc­ Kibben wrote of these new global problems, “Man’s efforts, even at their mightiest, were tiny compared with the size of the planet—​­the Roman Empire meant nothing to the Arctic or the Amazon. But now, the way of life of

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one part of the world in one half-­century is altering every inch and every hour of the globe.”36 McKibben argued that it was already too late to avoid some consequences of damaging human activity toward the environment, saying climate change was unavoidable.37 The End of Nature questioned the ability of science to provide meaning in a world where humans have attained so much disproportionate power over their surroundings. He noted, “The hope that science could replace religion as a way for human beings to cope with the world, then, was really a hope that ‘nature’ could replace ‘God’ as a source of inspiration and understanding. . . . ​But nature, it turned out, was fragile: men could turn it on its head so that it was no longer ‘immutable’ and no longer ‘on the side of life.’ ”38 If a new understanding of the world was necessary to fix the problems humans had created, then McKibben suggested deep ecology, a concept of Arne Naess, a philosopher from Norway.39 In the 1970s, Naess argued for “a substantial reorientation of our whole civilization” instead of just shallow reform efforts aimed at fixing the environment.40 McKibben saw embracing Naess’s philosophy as leading to a “humbler world” “where our desires are not the engine” that drive society.41 The notion that humanity had to transform itself through the way it thought about nature would become even more prevalent in the 1990s.42 Most scientists, like the climatologist Stephen H. Schneider in Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? (1989), still placed their faith in science. By beginning his book with a brief description of the future if global warming is allowed to go unchecked, Schneider followed the example of previous scientists like Leo Szilard and Rachel Carson who provided exhortative fictional portraits. In his future scenario, various disasters—​ ­droughts, hurricanes, rising sea levels, smog, wildfires, and power failures—​ ­overwhelm the nation.43 By providing a glimpse into the future, Schneider believed he was fulfilling the role that he thought scientists should play in resolving the crisis he described, emphasizing education of the public through using language and metaphors they could understand.44 His book also strived to put this into effect by describing the science behind the greenhouse effect and the history of natural climate change.45 The ultimate solution to global warming in Schneider’s view was not, however, a comprehensive change in the way humans relate to nature; rather, governments needed to invest in technologies, such as fuel efficiency and nuclear and solar power, that would cut down on CO2 emissions.46 As it had in earlier periods, American science fiction dealt with the

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severity of emerging global environmental crises by developing scenarios, in their self-­styled prophecies, reminiscent of premillennialist ones.47 Far from being as gloomy about nuclear winter or climate change as conservatives believed, American scientific apocalypticists reiterated themes of confession, salvation, judgment, and millennium. Aliens still acted as saviors, and evolution could still turn nuclear war into a purgative of human sins.48 Solutions such as aliens stepping in to rescue humanity or missions to the stars resulting in space colonies that preserve a remnant continued to appear in the 1980s.49 Sometimes all it would take was an Elect surviving the war to create the postjudgment millennium.50 Michael Armstrong’s Agviq: The Whale (1990) combines that last theme with a celebration of primitivism, similar to environmental science fiction in the 1970s. Agviq takes place in Alaska where an anthropologist is working when an all-­out nuclear war results in an immediate nuclear winter. Claudia, the white scholar, teaches the Inupiaq their old ways, which they have forgotten. The paternalistic situation is a microcosm of how white science fiction authors, who mainly lived in the modern United States, romanticized indigenous cultures. Armstrong asserts in the preface, “Agviq is written out of a deep respect for the Inupiaq people and as a warning against the things that threaten to destroy not only their culture, but all cultures.”51 Despite this contention, the depiction of the Inupiaq as having lost most of their culture means that the war is an opportunity to restore the traditions that respect the Earth, albeit at the direction of a white lady, which also allows everyone to survive the harsh winter. Even science fiction writers who did not appropriate native culture preached that living off the land could spare humanity. The idea that a nuclear war could be freeing for its survivors was a theme that had appeared earlier, and in the 1980s writers coupled it with environmentalist criticism of industrial society. In Ardath Mayhar’s The World Ends in Hickory Hollow (1985), nuclear war meant an escape from the drudgery of modern life. The characters are hopeful, even happy, about scraping a life together: “Zack and I had studied our Mother Earth for years, and had adapted many of their scrounged-­part, homemade methods for generating heat and electricity to our own needs.”52 A character encapsulates this plucky attitude to a new life when he says, “The world has ended, but we are just beginning.”53 Despite the devastating effect a nuclear winter was theorized to have, American science fiction authors like Armstrong and Mayhar were still able to visualize a near utopia for a select few survivors following a nuclear war.

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Despite these continuities, American books in the 1980s that portrayed nuclear war were more likely to show the United States as the aggressor. This may have been because of the perception of Reagan as especially aggressive toward the Soviet Union. After a nuclear war, a character in Luke Rhinehart’s Long Voyage Back (1983) concludes that since the Dakotas were safe (South Dakota being a location for missile silos), the U.S. president must have ordered a first strike “out of fear that the enemy was desperate enough to do it, so he’d better do it first.”54 Even if the United States did not strike first, writers represented its actions in the world as being provocative. An elder in Robinson’s The Wild Shore (1984) explained, “We were eating up the world, boy, and that’s why the world rose up and put an end to us. So I’m not contradicting myself. America was great like a whale—​­it was giant and majestic, but it stank and was a killer. Lots of fish died to make it so big.”55 Science fiction treated the Soviet Union leniently in comparison to the United States. In Paul Cook’s postnuclear tale Duende Meadow (1985), Americans emerge from underground six hundred years after a worldwide war and discover Russian survivors, who are not much different from them, restoring the land.56 Prior to the 1980s, scientific apocalyptic authors repeatedly suggested that humanity (with the United States serving as its representative) was innately corrupt and destined to destroy itself. In the 1980s writers of speculative fiction began to question this conclusion. The public appearance in the late 1970s of a scientific question related to aliens may have propelled this trend. Fermi’s Paradox refers to an observation attributed to Enrico Fermi in 1950. The story behind Fermi’s Paradox is that Fermi came up with it during a lunch with at least two other physicists, including Edward Teller, at Los Alamos that summer, where work on nuclear weapons, especially the hydrogen bomb, continued. During a discussion of UFO sightings, Fermi asked where the aliens were. Embedded within that simple question was the notion that if evolution occurred over and over in the universe, then statistically it would lead to sentient life a certain number of times (and Fermi evidently did various calculations to ascertain the probability of this). Given the age and size of the universe, there should be some sign of that life.57 The ideas within Fermi’s Paradox started showing up in scientific nonfiction and fiction in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Michael Hart, a scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, published a paper in 1975 in which he discussed the possible reasons why humans had not heard from aliens. Maybe extraterrestrials have no interest in us, perhaps sentient beings tend to destroy themselves after harnessing nuclear power, or possibly

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the Earth is an alien preserve, declared off-­limits. Hart rejects those three explanations in favor of a simpler one: humans are the first intelligent species in the galaxy. Hart uses language that implies a higher purpose for our existence, when he observes that “the cause of our priority is not yet known.” His article predicts that human descendants would probably be the ones living on any Earth-­like planets in our galaxy in the future.58 Science fiction authors in the 1980s, however, did not share Hart’s optimism. Aliens leave a message that most intelligent species destroy themselves without help in Norman Spinrad’s Songs from the Stars (1980).59 Spinrad, a professional science fiction writer who worked on Star Trek (1966–­1969), was no doubt familiar with science fiction tropes from the previous three decades. The novel features a post–­Judgment Day society, which resembles an environmentalist millennium. Clear Blue Lou is a character who seeks out illegal technology in Aquaria, apparently a mountain valley spared from the nuclear destruction that took out the rest of the world. Lou seeks practitioners of “black science,” known as sorcerers, who try to profit from polluting technology, with anything radioactive being the most criminal, in pristine Aquaria. “White science,” in Lou’s world, is anything powered by “muscle, sun, wind and water.”60 People still subsist in the postnuclear world outside, practicing the “black sciences,” especially “Spacers” who want to travel to the stars. A complicated plot involving Spacer subterfuge eventually brings Lou and another Aquarian in contact with the penitent descendants of an alien species that destroyed its own home through “black science.” They make amends by reaching out to other civilizations to warn them of the fate of most sentient life. The only way out of the extinction trap is to join the “Galactic Way,” which resembles the way of life in Aquaria, except on a cosmic scale, and also involves the joining of a singular consciousness. Lou and his compatriots discover their utopia can only endure if humanity rejects black science once and for all. Lou describes the changes coming to Earth if everyone accepts the aliens’ invitation to turn their backs on “black science”: “the deepest patterns of mind that underlay the interface between the spirit and the world would all be shattered and transformed into something new.”61 Spreading the message to the rest of Earth will usher in a New Age, giving them another million years of life before the galactic cycle of destruction and rebirth starts anew. Lou’s New Age entailed spiritual and environmental renewal, and fiction writers who focused solely on eco-­disasters adopted the same solution.62 The

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problems of climate change, ozone-­layer depletion, and pollution seemed so intractable that they required this extraordinary of a solution. While nuclear-­ war fiction writers mostly offered the same solutions to avoid an apocalyptic nuclear war during the 1980s as they had in previous decades, they also became less prone to believe that humanity deserved such an end. By contrast, environmental writers continued to attribute environmental ills to the evil nature of humanity. Because a distant, vast bureaucracy controlled the nation’s nuclear weapons, Americans felt they had little power over their government, especially after the revelation of Nixon’s deceptions in the 1970s. This may have contributed to the sense that nuclear war might not be the result of innate human evil but could simply occur because of the accidental action of one misguided individual. Environmental problems presumably could still be traced either to the collective effect of many individual actions or to a societal desire for a certain standard of living. Some underpinned this idea of relating to nature in a new way with theory. James Lovelock, a British scientist, published a book in 1979 discussing the Earth’s remarkable tendency to maintain a stable temperature and atmosphere over millions of years. This propensity suggested a metaphor: the Earth as a living being. Lovelock called his theory Gaia, after the Greek goddess who was born out of chaos.63 Critics pointed to Lovelock’s anthropomorphic language as evidence of its unscientific nature, and although he meant it as a metaphor, the idea of Earth as a living entity entered popular culture. Gaia makes an appearance in Poul Anderson’s Orion Shall Rise (1983), a tale of a nuclear war that has made the Maurai Federation (after the Māori in New Zealand) the new power in the world. Anderson’s novel suggests nuclear war was a lesser evil than environmental degradation. One Maurai government representative says, “Sometimes I wonder if the Downfall didn’t come barely in time, to save the whole biosphere from what the old industry was doing to it.”64 The nuclear war that devastated the rest of the world was a Gaia-­directed reprieve for Earth: “the War of Judgment was not a plain human mistake, an unleashing of powers more vast and lethal than anyone had truly comprehended. It was a fever whereby Gaea freed Herself of a disease.”65 In this new conception, Gaia was a living entity with God-­like powers taking action to prevent humans from causing further damage to Earth (just as God intervenes to prevent the total annihilation of mankind in the dispensationalist scheme).

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Whereas scientific apocalypticists grappled with new scientific theories, political conservatives attacked the costliness of environmental reform, suggesting that the science of environmentalism was shaky. Reagan entered office in 1981 vowing to get rid of overregulation. The authors of a history of the debate over the ozone layer, Between Earth and Sky: How CFCs Changed Our World and Endangered the Ozone Layer (1993), argued that Reagan was representative of a “Western” reaction to environmentalism: “The environmental movement of the 1970s had won clean-­air and -­water legislation; it had won wilderness designations and had helped ban the aerosol; it had seen the institution of thousands of regulations and a bureaucracy to enforce them; but it had also inspired a powerful and resentful antienvironmentalism that rose up out of the West.”66 Assessments of environmentalism in the 1980s vary. Reagan’s administration was not supportive of environmental causes, but membership in mainstream environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and the National Wildlife Federation grew during the 1980s.67 Two different analyses, one by Kirkpatrick Sale (a prolific writer on environmental issues) and the other by the sociologist Riley E. Dunlap, assert that public support for environmental causes grew during the 1980s because of the anti-­ environmental bent of Reagan’s administration.68 Though facing challenges from conservatives, the momentum of the environmental movement did not slow in the 1980s. The continued discovery of new issues in addition to global warming and ozone-­layer depletion propelled the movement. While nuclear energy became less of an issue after Three Mile Island (because no new nuclear reactors were being built), local concerns over toxic waste became heightened after the discovery of hazardous waste in Love Canal, a community outside of Niagara Falls, New York. In the 1940s and 1950s, the Hooker Chemical Company, with the sanction of the U.S. government, had used Love Canal as a dumping ground for toxic waste. In the mid-­1950s, the company filled the site with dirt and then gave it to the city of Niagara Falls in a token sale of a dollar. The city built an elementary school on the site. In 1975 and 1976, the community received a lot of rain, and chemical odors began to permeate Love Canal as barrels of toxic waste rose to the surface. In 1979 the state agreed to purchase the homes of residents in Love Canal, and President Carter asked Congress for emergency aid. Congress created the “Superfund” a year later, a $1.6 billion package administered by the EPA, to clean up hazardous waste in the United States. The

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result of Love Canal was the birth of both the antitoxics movement and the NIMBY (not-­in-­my-­backyard) movement.69 Just as mainstream environmental organizations may have grown in the 1980s due to the anti-­ environmental disposition of Reagan’s administration, Sale theorizes that the reason the NIMBY sentiment was so strong in the 1980s was “the growing feeling that official Washington was unresponsive and environmental Washington preoccupied.”70 The advance of environmentalism did not trouble premillennial dispensationalists until the late 1980s, but the political response to nuclear winter affected Bible prophecy earlier in the decade. The response of Bible prophecy proponents to nuclear weapons during the 1980s cannot be understood apart from Reagan’s policies and views on nuclear war. As some conservative evangelicals became more political during the 1980s, they made statements for or against U.S. foreign policy. Billy Graham, for instance, came out rather startlingly in 1979 against nuclear proliferation on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite and in the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners. As Grant Wacker has argued, Graham did not abandon dispensationalism, but he did emphasize premillennialist principles over dispensationalist ones.71 As Graham grew older, he did not emulate those like Hal Lindsey who believed they knew the precise plan that was unfolding. This allowed Graham to remain much less partisan. The Southern Baptist evangelist Jerry Falwell, meanwhile, threw his support behind Reagan, insisting throughout Reagan’s time in office that “peace through strength” was the most moral position on nuclear weapons. He put his energy behind SDI after Reagan announced it in 1983. A form letter in Falwell’s name sent to supporters in 1985 asked citizens to tell the president “we must not let the liberals bury President Reagan’s ‘Star War’ policy!” The letter underscored Falwell’s belief that the USSR was ahead militarily and suggested that “many military experts are saying that the Star Wars defense program is our only and last hope.” The letter ended with the sentiment that “I firmly believe this is a matter of survival . . . ​and the Star Wars program is our best and last chance to survive.”72 Reagan and members of his administration also made public statements about Bible prophecy, bringing media scrutiny to bear on premillennial beliefs.73 The media called Reagan’s beliefs “Armageddon theology.” Reagan, according to the Christic Institute, a public policy center, made at least eleven statements suggesting that Armageddon was near during his first term in office. Variously, Reagan suggested that the USSR is “the focus of evil in the

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modern empire” and that many of the prophecies about the end-­times were coming true.74 The liberal evangelical Jim Wallis called so-­called Armageddon theology a “blasphemy, a theology to justify nuclear weapons,” at a news conference assembled to discuss concerns of Christians and Jews about Reagan’s and the Religious Right’s eschatological beliefs.75 The attention put conservative evangelicals on the defensive. Falwell refuted that he had ever said there would be nuclear war with the USSR.76 The Christic Institute, however, contended otherwise, citing a 1981 interview in which he said that Russia would invade Israel and nuclear war would ensue. Like Falwell, Reagan backed away from his eschatological statements, saying, “I have never seriously warned and said we must plan according to Armageddon.”77 John Walvoord, then president of Dallas Theological Seminary, when asked of his opinion of Armageddon theology, mentioned the influence of Hal Lindsey, noting that Lindsey “goes beyond our teaching.” He continued, “The end-­time war is a conventional war. I disagree with him that the Bible teaches nuclear war.”78 Other members of Reagan’s administration subscribed to a prophetic worldview. Reagan’s secretary of defense, Caspar Weinberger, was quoted in 1983 as offering insight into the location of a final apocalyptic battle in Palestine (Mount of Megiddo).79 During a 1981 hearing, a congressman asked Reagan’s secretary of the interior, James Watt, a question about preserving scenic resources for future generations. He replied (in a quote that has often been misleadingly truncated), “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to have the resources needed for future generations.”80 Reagan’s views on Bible prophecy form part of a larger controversy over his presidency. A Saturday Night Live skit, “Mastermind,” aired in late 1986 that captures this ongoing debate. Set in the Oval Office, the sketch opened with Reagan answering a reporter’s questions about the Iran-­Contra affair. The actor’s demeanor was friendly, speaking in a gentle tone. When the reporter leaves, the Reagan impersonator straightens up and begins issuing orders to his aides in a fast-­talking, hard voice. The idea of Reagan as acting Nixonian in private and grandfatherly in public was an easy punchline, especially after an independent investigation into the Iran-­Contra affair reported in early 1987 that Reagan’s habit of delegating much of his work had allowed illegal activities to occur. Did he mastermind his presidency, or was he unusually detached from its affairs? In the years since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, popular books

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about Reagan have portrayed him as a brilliant strategist who ended the Cold War by deliberately forcing the Soviet Union to spend money it didn’t have on the arms race.81 Objections to this view are numerous. No one in the United States, even Soviet experts, realized that the Soviet Union was as near economic collapse as it was.82 That Reagan’s increase in military spending coincided with Soviet financial disaster was fortuitous for the United States but unplanned. Reagan supporters in particular point to SDI as key to ending the Cold War, but no evidence exists that Reagan pursued “Star Wars” for any reason other than his belief that it was necessary technology to defend the country. In 1985, when Reagan sat down with Gorbachev in Geneva, they made little concrete progress because Reagan refused to negotiate on SDI. Nor did he agree to relent on SDI at the next three summits. In 1999 when Edmund Morris’s biography of Reagan came out, scholars were eager to see the results. Morris had unprecedented access to Reagan’s files, and many hoped the finished product would be a thorough understanding of Reagan himself. Instead, Morris was as baffled as anyone else, evident in his decision to structure parts of his book as a movie script. A nuanced portrait of Reagan suggests he led from instinct. He took a hard line early in his presidency but by 1984, along with a small group of advisors, had begun seeking warmer relations with the Soviet Union. 83 When Gorbachev came to office, Reagan concluded that the new general secretary was someone he could work with. The historian Beth Fischer argues that Reagan was not seeking to destroy the Soviets but did want to ease tensions between the two superpowers. That decision had nothing to do with Bible prophecy either, as premillennialists saw Gorbachev as a potential Antichrist. Dispensationalists had always balanced their imminent expectation of the apocalypse with the need to live in the present. An obvious criticism of dispensationalists was that they still bought houses, got married, had children, and saved money at the same time they saw signs of the End in current events. It was a continuous tension that kept believers fired up, but most dispensationalists were careful to maintain that no one could know the date or time of the Final Judgment. Reagan’s policies walked the same tightrope. Reagan’s channeling of Bible prophecy in his speeches brought attention to those beliefs, even if it was largely a rhetorical posture on his part. The visibility of Bible prophecy and other conservative evangelical beliefs in the 1980s threatened the view that dispensationalists had of themselves as a mocked minority standing firm in their beliefs. Dispensational premillennialists in the United States assumed powerful political positions and wielded more direct

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influence in American culture at the same time that dispensationalism was disappearing among the dwindling population of evangelicals in Britain (an exception lay in Northern Ireland where premillennial expectations seemed more consistent with the mood of “the Troubles”).84 Other English-­speaking evangelicals began to associate dispensationalism with the New Right, and dispensationalists and the new conservative coalition did at times seem to speak with the same voice during Reagan’s administration. Globally, dispensationalists may have seemed quintessentially American, and premillennial ideas became so prominent that they began to make direct appearances during the late 1970s and 1980s in American popular culture. With the debate over Armageddon theology playing out in the media during the early 1980s, scientific apocalyptic fiction writers often incorporated characters who were trying to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. Alan Rodgers’s Fire (1990) presents a caricature of Ronald Reagan: “Wednesday was the day that the president got on television and threatened to ‘nuke the Soviet Union into the Stone Age.’ ”85 Fire’s president also is a strong believer in Bible prophecy: “Have you ever read your Bible? Have you noticed how much this nation—​­this whole damned world—​­is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? This worlds needs cleansing, Perkins. The kind of cleansing that only the fire of righteousness can bring!”86 Ultimately in the hopes of bringing about the Rapture, the president launches nuclear missiles at Russia.87 By 1991, premillennial dispensationalist ideas were so mainstream that a major film production company—​­New Line Cinema—​­released a movie called The Rapture, which depicted the spiriting away of the “saved” and the consequences of rejecting salvation. Even if their visibility was new, dispensationalist ideas regarding nuclear weapons remained consistent with beliefs from prior decades. They were not attempting to bring about the End as the media implied and science fiction outright portrayed, but premillennial Christians had become convinced right after 1945 that nuclear weapons were to be used in the final battle of Armageddon. By the 1960s, they were certain that the disarmament movement would be a way for the Antichrist to take power by promising to bring about peace and end the threat of nuclear war. When fears of nuclear anxiety resurged in the 1980s, these two themes were dominant but with some differences.88 Far from imagining how Christians could remain faithful in the aftermath of a nuclear war, like scientific apocalypticists Bible prophecy writers argued that a nuclear war would be so devastating that nothing would be left. Hal Lindsey in The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon (1980) sounded

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this alarm: “If that [nuclear] confrontation is indeed ‘all out,’ what are our chances for survival? We have none, it seems. The world’s superpowers now have enough nuclear ammunition to wipe out the entire human race.”89 The corollary to Lindsey’s observation was Billy Graham’s assertion in 1981 during a Washington Cathedral sermon that “God is not going to allow the human race to destroy itself. . . . ​[If] man stands ready to throw his bombs at each other . . . ​God will intervene.”90 If nuclear bombs are so destructive that they threaten all human life, then premillennialists could understand why people would crave peace. But Bible prophecy writers argued in response to the nuclear-­freeze movement, as G. Russell Evans did in The Baptist Challenge in 1983, that the Bible does not support pacifism.91 Bruce Dunn, a pastor at Grace Presbyterian in Peoria, Illinois, in “The World Will End!” explained that “scripture is clear that the world will never have lasting peace until Jesus Christ brings it.”92 Similarly, in 1984 Reagan called Communism the “focus of evil in the modern world,” which meant that the nuclear-­freeze movement was a “dangerous fraud.”93 Bible prophecy writers continued to find new interpretations of scripture in the light of nuclear weapons. The cofounder of the Institute for Creation Research in the 1970s and a doctor of engineering, Henry M. Morris, reported finding a description of nuclear fire in Revelation 18:8 in 1983: “The Scriptures do not describe the source of such a devastating fire, but it surely can be no ordinary fire. . . . ​Possibly the earthquake belches fire and brimstone from the earth’s mantle. Possibly nuclear missiles stored in Babylon are somehow detonated. Perhaps it is all strictly supernatural fire from heaven.”94 The publication of the “nuclear winter” theory further inspired new interpretations of prophetic passages in the Bible. The evangelical journalist Mike Evans in The Return (1986) said that ozone-­layer depletion from nuclear war is reminiscent of passages in Revelation (8:5, 7–­8, 12; 6:12, 14–­17).95 According to Evans, nuclear winter is consistent with “the book of Revelation in Chapters 8 and 9 [that] describes a period of time when catastrophic changes will take place in the atmosphere and on the structure of the earth, and the sun and the moon will be darkened.”96 Another example comes from a former NASA engineer and self-­described Bible student, Edgar Whisenant, in his On Borrowed Time (1988). He attributed Revelation 11:6, which foretells that winds will stop blowing, to dark clouds blocking out the sun’s heat.97 Even the fire at the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in the Soviet Union, which created the worst nuclear accident in world history, prompted the new interpretation of a passage in Revelation. Robert Faid, a nuclear engineer

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who converted to evangelical Christianity as an adult, explained in Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come? (1988) that “in the Ukraine there grows an herb which is commonly called wormwood. The name for this herb in the Ukrainian language is CHERNOBYL. God is telling us, through this Soviet nuclear disaster, exactly what the star named Wormwood in Revelation really is—​­nuclear contamination from a nuclear war which will poison the third part of the earth’s drinking water.”98 At the same time that premillennial dispensationalists considered Bible prophecy in the light of new political and scientific developments related to nuclear weapons, they also paid attention to environmental issues in their analyses of Bible prophecy. In the early 1980s, Bible prophecy that incorporated environmental themes read much as it did in the 1970s. These writers continued to heed the trends within environmental science. Lindsey’s 1980s repeated what he had said about overpopulation and pollution in earlier works as being signs of the end-­times.99 Morris in The Revelation Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Revelation (1983) declared his purpose to be to examine Revelation from a scientific point of view; he discussed pollution as well as climate change.100 He wrote that Revelation 16:8 predicted the intense heat of sun would melt the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which will raise sea levels, suggesting that “such melting is imminent even under present environmental conditions, as the global greenhouse is being augmented by the burning of fossil fuels.”101 Others spoke more generally of various environmental problems as signs that Christ must be coming back soon. Evans in The Return (1986) listed Three Mile Island, Love Canal, and Times Beach (a Missouri town abandoned after it was found to be contaminated with dioxin in 1983) as signs of the End.102 In addition to pollution and toxic waste, he also pointed to overpopulation and the relatively new concerns of acid rain and global warming as signs of Christ’s imminent return.103 References to scientific apocalypticists also continued to make appearances in Bible prophecy writings. One Bible prophecy analyst included a summary of The Population Explosion, Anne and Paul Ehrlich’s 1990 update of The Population Bomb. Jerry Johnston, a Southern Baptist minister, listed overpopulation among the ills troubling the world in The Last Days of Planet Earth (1991).104 He agreed with the Ehrlichs that population problems were causing the greenhouse effect, acid rain, depletion of the ozone layer, disease, and pollution.105 Johnston sounded more like an environmentalist than an evangelist when he wrote, “If the choice is made, for instance, to wait 10 years

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or more for definite research results on the greenhouse effect before making decisions on the allowed rate that greenhouse gases may be released into the atmosphere, there is a risk that the self-­regulatory climatic system of the earth could, in the meantime, be irreversibly overwhelmed, with consequent catastrophic, global disturbances.”106 These examples show writers engaging in the same hermeneutics that dispensationalists developed in the late nineteenth century of using both current events and scientific trends to show that their beliefs had scientific validity. That some of these writers had a science background only confirms how untroubled they were by charges that science had refuted their beliefs, especially as a new round of creationist-­evolutionist sparring commenced.107 In the 1980s, the debate over creationism in the classroom heated up again after the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), striking down a law in Louisiana that forbade the teaching of evolution without also teaching creationism. Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion, which argued that the law violated the Establishment clause in the First Amendment (forbidding a government-­mandated church). Conservative evangelicals had never abandoned their position that creationism and evolution were not compatible, and in the 1970s they pressed for laws demanding biology teachers explain creationism alongside evolution to their students. Louisiana was one of several states that had introduced such legislation. The debate would be part of the culture wars of the 1990s, and its effects were already becoming apparent in Bible prophecy. At least one premillennialist popularizer, Texe Marrs, mentioned the fallibility and fluctuating nature of science in the course of his exegesis.108 Such an acknowledgment was rare though; evangelicals did not want to invalidate science entirely. They were too invested in using it to confirm their interpretations of prophecy. A more common response was to insist on exact literalism in interpreting the Bible. Charles C. Ryrie, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, in The Final Countdown (1982) wrote on Rev. 8:7, “Fire and blood, here, are not symbols of something else. We are to take them literally. They will devastate vegetation on the earth and further add to the climatic disruptions.”109 Instead of explaining the locusts that will attack unbelievers during the Tribulation period as being created by radiation or genetic engineering, Ryrie said there is no explanation for such creatures because they are supernatural.110 Walvoord similarly insisted on precision in The Prophecy Knowledge Handbook (1990). On Revelation 8:1–­13 regarding one-­third of the Earth

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burning up, he averred: “These judgments on the earth can best be taken in their literal sense. It is not clear how the hail and fire could be mixed with blood, but in a supernatural event this was possible. The result was that a third of the earth, of the trees, and of the green grass were burned up.”111 Instead of relating the star Wormwood to a nuclear bomb, Walvoord maintained, “The best explanation again is to take it in its literal sense. The star falling from heaven was undoubtedly a large object naturally blazing as it entered the atmosphere and apparently having chemicals that made the water bitter.”112 The decline of scientific authority may have encouraged Ryrie’s and Walvoord’s increased literalism, but they were also writing in the wake of Lindsey’s success in popularizing Bible prophecy. Dallas Theological Seminary was a bastion of dispensationalism, and these two professors may have been trying to restore a more scholarly tone to the discussion without overt criticism of Lindsey, a graduate of that institution. In 1984, a Christianity Today article quoted Walvoord as admitting that Lindsey tended to go too far in his predictions for the future.113 Debates within dispensationalism itself were not in the public eye in these works, but by the new millennium the success of another Bible prophecy series—​­Left Behind—​­would result in a flood of books that argued over the importance of different doctrinal details. Just as scientific apocalypticists increasingly questioned scientific solutions, the belief that science and technology had created the environmental crisis but could not solve it appeared in conservative evangelical writings. Anti-­and counterenvironmentalists denied the existence or questioned the severity of environmental problems; their arguments made surprisingly little headway among conservative evangelicals until the late 1980s. Conservative evangelicals tended to acknowledge environmental ills but also expressed a concern that environmentalism had become intertwined with the New Age movement. Fear of what environmentalism was doing to the economy did not concern premillennialist Christians writing about Bible prophecy in the 1980s. An American religion scholar, Sarah M. Pike, has written a study of the New Age and Neopagan movements in the United States. While she distinguishes the two—​­in their history and their emphases—​­Bible prophecy writers tended to conflate them. Pike says modern versions of the New Age movement and Neopaganism developed during the 1960s, influenced by the countercultural and social movements of the decade, including environmentalism.114 According to Pike, New Agers conceived of a special relationship

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between humans and nature, at times endorsing the Gaia theory: “Because they believe in interconnectedness and the unlimited potential of human consciousness, many New Agers think humans have special responsibility to the rest of the planet.”115 Pike observes that Neopagan ideas have appeared among environmentalists; their beliefs resemble animism, or the idea that spirits infuse nature.116 New Agers and Neopagans also harbored millennial beliefs. Some were millenarian, predicting that the Earth would violently overthrow its oppressors. Only then would a remnant of humanity live in harmony with nature. Others were postmillennial in their forecasts, prognosticating a gradual conversion of people the world over to New Age ideas, which would initiate the New Age.117 Conservative evangelicals tended to interpret the New Age and Neopagan involvement in environmental causes as proof that environmentalism as a whole had become New Age. The New Age movement was not merely a problem because it was an alternative religion to Christianity that did not worship God. Bible prophecy writers believed that the New Age movement itself was ushering in the Antichrist, and the millennial beliefs of New Agers seemed to confirm that suspicion. Two books appeared in 1983 to alert conservative evangelicals to the dangers of the New Age movement. Written by a Baptist lawyer, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: The New Age Movement and Our Coming Age of Barbarism purported to expose the New Age menace.118 Constance Cumbey laid out a case that the New Age movement and the environmentalist movement were one and the same, and successive Bible prophecy books would repeat her denunciations. She listed Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Zero Population Growth as New Age organizations.119 Her book enumerated phrases and concepts that, to her mind, were evidence of New Ageism: Spaceship Earth, holistic, and vanguard. She named Ernest Callenbach and E. F. Schumacher as New Agers and warned her readers that New Agers had even invaded Christianity with the Earthkeeping movement, a Christian concept that adherence to biblical values means taking care of the environment.120 An accountant who began his own ministry in the 1970s, Dave Hunt, wrote a similar book that explained the relationship of the New Age movement to Bible prophecy. Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust: The New Age Movement in Prophecy deemed pollution of the world’s hydrosphere and atmosphere a threat to the world but more important was the possibility that

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such problems could lead to a one-­world government.121 Hunt did not deny the existence of environmental ills but believed that they would be solved as part of the Antichrist’s program of peace and prosperity.122 The implication was that working to solve environmental issues would be playing into the hands of Satan. More Bible prophecy articles and books noting the connection between the New Age movement and environmentalism followed these two works during the 1980s. Like Cumbey and Hunt, these writers tended to argue that mainstream environmentalism had become entwined with the New Age movement.123 Furthermore, the argument went, Satan’s plan was for the environmental crisis to mislead people into believing that only a one-­world government could save the Earth.124 They did not deny the existence of environmental problems but asserted that only God would resolve the crisis when Christ returned and ushered in the millennium, much as scientific apocalypticists hoped for an Edenic future to follow catastrophe.125 Hunt wrote more books on the topic during the 1980s, including America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice: The Rise of New Age Shamanism (1988), with T. A. McMahon, a member of Hunt’s ministry. In America, Hunt and McMahon went so far as to accuse a particular scientist of having a relationship to the New Age movement: “In clear-­cut terms, the Bible indicts those who, like popular astronomer Carl Sagan, worship the creation instead of its Creator. While Sagan would ridicule the suggestion that ‘spirits’ inhabit elements of nature and guide its development, he attributes the same spiritual qualities of intelligence and purpose to matter. This neopantheism of academia is called ecotheology.”126 Shunning milder terms like “pagan,” Hunt and McMahon asserted, “Witchcraft is an important factor not only in ecological activism, as already mentioned but in other influential movements as well.”127 Such rhetoric directed at scientists would become harsher and more widespread after Frank Peretti’s late 1980s works of fiction sounded the alarm over the New Age movement. Many contemporary evangelicals learned about the evils of New Agers through Peretti’s popular novels This Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing the Darkness (1988); according to a recent edition of the former, Peretti has sold over 3.5 million copies of the two books.128 Peretti belongs to the Assemblies of God, and though his books don’t incorporate Bible prophecy, premillennialist fiction appropriated the powerful images he created. Peretti described a world in which literal demons and angels are constantly at war around us, fighting to influence people to follow either

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Satan or God. Faith in God is the fuel that drives the angels; when a person under attack by Satan via his demons prays to God, it infuses angels with additional power to force the demons away. In the human world, this “spiritual warfare” manifests itself when someone is tempted to commit a sin, like doubting God, but then finds reassurance through prayer. This Present Darkness centers its action in a town where deluded New Agers, unwittingly following demons as “spirit guides,” have seized power and rule as the “inner circle.” A psychology professor from a local college helps lead the inner circle in their communion with their spirit guides. In a representative passage, a Christian man feels God is leading him to a teen hangout to help a boy in the midst of spiritual crisis. The narrator describes “the cave” for readers: “Here were kids of all ages, with few other places to go, congregating after school and all through the weekends to hang out, hang on, play games, pair up, wander off, do drugs, do sex, do whatever. Hank knew this place was a hell hole; it wasn’t the machines, or the decor, or the ­dimness—​­it was just the pungent spiritual stench of demons having their heyday.”129 For believers, such descriptions resonated with what they felt happened everyday in their communities. The video-­game style of angelic warfare, the almost magical powers of Christian characters, and the edge-­of-­your-­seat horror scenes drew in readers. The narrative painted anything New Age in sinister shades. The result was an extra edge of terror for evangelicals reading about the New Age influence in environmentalism. Supporting environmental reform became impossible because of the potential for playing into the hands of Satan; more conservative evangelicals believed it was a Christian imperative to oppose anything that smacked of the New Age movement. Some concluded that environmental degradation was inevitable (and not amenable to reform) according to the Bible. A column in Peter Lalonde’s newsletter about Bible prophecy clarified that belief: “You see, the environmental disasters taking place today are a direct fulfillment of Bible prophecy . . . ​the Bible does forewarn that this planet is reserved for fire and that it will suffer environmental degradation and disaster in the last days.”130 Hunt in Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist (1990) reached a similar conclusion: “A number of God’s judgments are ecological in nature, devastating the grass and trees and polluting the oceans and rivers. The implication is that man has brought the dire consequences upon himself.”131 Bible prophecy writers in speaking of the environment repeatedly referred to the concept of stewardship just as they did in the 1970s. By the late

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1980s, however, they began to add a disclaimer to their discussion of stewardship.132 Premillennialist Christians argued that God’s will might not mesh with caring for the environment. David W. Cloud of Himalayan Baptist Outreach and Way of Life Literature, a book-­publishing ministry, proclaimed that Christians should care about the environment while remembering that “this present world is under God’s curse. It is a dying world filled with dying men.”133 James McKeever argued in 1990, “We need to be reasonable stewards. However, there will be times when God asks us to do something that may seem contrary to caring for the environment, and then His will must prevail.”134 He added, “For example, the Lord may even want you to drive 100 miles to minister to a church or to an individual.”135 Earth Day in 1970 resulted in Christian evangelicals musing on the importance of environmental issues in publications like Moody Monthly and Christianity Today. In 1990, Earth Day prompted articles in evangelical magazines expressing the fear that Earth Day was indoctrinating people into the New Age movement and deceiving them into thinking that human action could solve the problems of this world. A 1990 editorial in Foundation: A Magazine of Biblical Fundamentalism warned Christians: “But the major result will be a further opening of the door to the indoctrination of unsuspecting people with spiritual poison which is far more dangerous than any physical pollution could ever be.”136 Patti Lalonde, an evangelist along with her husband Peter Lalonde, told her readers in “Earth Day: The Day the Earth Came to Life” (1990), “Let us remember that while this world is suffering an environmental crisis it is suffering a far worse sin crisis.”137 Anxiety about New Age exploitation of environmental problems at the end of the decade led some to articulate conspiracy theories that involved the brainwashing of the entire country. Bible prophecy writers began suggesting that non-­Christians would blame the Rapture on aliens in a conflation of the New Age movement with UFO organizations. In the novel Suddenly . . . ​One Was Taken! (1990), written by Jerry Robeson, an evangelical missionary who produced numerous television and radio programs, those who are left behind after the Rapture attribute the disappearances to aliens. The American population believes the aliens are trying to reeducate the Raptured.138 Hunt, in his nonfiction Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist, explained how such a scenario might occur: he believed that Satan had already planted messages in believers of UFOs that large numbers of people will one day vanish. That event will signal the arrival of extraterrestrial overlords prepared to take

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control of the Earth to end suffering, especially nuclear or environmental.139 The aliens who appear, however, will be demons in disguise, there to install the Antichrist in power. The conclusion that environmentalists might be doing the work of the Antichrist led naturally to the idea that environmentalism promoted false ideas. In the 1990s, some conservative evangelicals started adopting the arguments of the anti-­environmental movement. In 1991 Peter Lalonde, in One World Under Anti-­Christ: Globalism, Seducing Spirits and Secrets of the New World Order, offered the usual analysis of the New Age movement’s relationship to environmentalism with one exception. Lalonde intimated that environmental problems are a fiction: an “example of a managed crisis is the environmental crisis. . . . ​The environmental movement was born in response to the Club of Rome’s ‘Mankind at the Turning Point’ report and has rapidly expanded due to a heavy media campaign in the past few years.”140 McKeever’s End-­Times News Digest also pronounced the environmental crisis a fraud that same year. McKeever’s article “Socialists Use Environment” weighed in on the global warming debate, asserting that “the heavily industrialized hemisphere of North America, which should heat up first, has experienced no mean hemispheric temperature change in the past 50 years.”141 Environmentalists do not recognize the need for pesticides to grow enough food for humanity, per McKeever. Moreover, he argued, acid rain is a myth and CFCs are safer than any alternative products.142 McKeever professed that he is not anti-­environment and believes in recycling as well as combating pollution.143 Any large-­scale action, however, would just play into the hands of the Antichrist, he alleged. Both Lalonde and McKeever were at the vanguard of conservative evangelicals in the 1990s who downplayed environmental problems, suggesting that Satan’s forces were manufacturing (not just exploiting) environmental crises to pave the way for the Antichrist. Such convictions about evil permeating seemingly benign secular organizations injected urgency into the culture wars of the 1990s. Issues like sexual harassment, presidential infidelity, and gay marriage grabbed the biggest headlines of that decade after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The United States announced it had been victorious in the Cold War, and the raising of the iron curtain seemed to introduce a new period of peace and prosperity, even if politically divided. Nevertheless, religious and scientific apocalypticists kept up their warnings that signs were all around of a coming Judgment Day. Although the dread of nuclear war diminished after 1991, the threat of environmental apocalypse was still there. In David Brin’s novel Earth (1990),

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a character comments, “No outside power can approach human destructiveness. So we managed not to fry ourselves in nuclear war? We only traded in that damoclean sword for others even worse.”144 The Persian Gulf War in 1991 had little impact on the views of scientific and religious apocalypticism. The Middle East had always been central to Bible prophecy, and conservative evangelical Christians wondered if Saddam Hussein was the Antichrist. For scientific apocalypticists, the Persian Gulf War was the first environmental war of likely many future ones, with the U.S. need for oil as its real cause.145 As the decade wore on, religious and scientific apocalypticists would take sides in the American debate over global warming but would still resemble each other in their broad outlines. Not until 9/11 would either undergo a major transformation.

Chapter 6

Postapocalyptic American Identity

The disintegration of the Soviet Union eased fears of a nuclear war ending all life on Earth, but the following decade turned out to be only a brief interregnum in which the United States was seemingly free from outside attack as the world’s only superpower. While the Persian Gulf War in January 1991 fleetingly stoked apocalyptic fears, its quick and successful resolution generally solidified American confidence in the future.1 Some U.S. thinkers concluded during the 1990s that the entire world had entered a new epoch. Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man (1992) argued that humanity had reached the pinnacle of its development with liberal democracy. Five years later, the science journalist John Horgan in The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (1996) proposed that “the great era of scientific discovery is over,” explaining that “research may yield no more great revelations or revolutions, but only incremental, diminishing returns.”2 In Horgan’s view, science had already provided the discoveries that would frame the way that people would understand the universe for coming millennia. According to these two writers, humankind had reached a plateau: civilization would be in stasis for the foreseeable future. Scientific apocalypticists did not subscribe to this view during the 1990s. They warned that nuclear weapons still posed a threat and continued to write about the environmental problems that they feared threatened the Earth. After the euphoria of “victory” in the Cold War wore off, instability in Russia became a growing concern in the 1990s among Americans; though a global showdown along the lines of the Cuban Missile Crisis was no longer considered a peril, analysts watching Russia feared a rogue military commander

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might seize nuclear weapons or terrorists might take advantage of faltering security at nuclear sites if Russia became too weak.3 While the end of the Cold War had little impact on environmental issues, except possibly paving the way for increased cooperation among nations, the Persian Gulf War for environmentalists was a warning that such conflicts might become more common in a future where nonrenewable resources were scarce. As the married writing team Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote that same year in Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis (1991), “The conflict in the Persian Gulf could all too easily be a harbinger of many bloody global battles over dwindling resources and deteriorating environments.”4 The Ehrlichs’ Healing the Planet boasted a more optimistic title than Paul Ehrlich’s famous 1968 work, The Population Bomb, but the Ehrlichs still maintained, as they had in previous works, that disaster was imminent if nations did not work together to restrict population growth or, better yet, reduce the total population.5 Similar to a premillennialist’s litany of signs of the apocalypse, Healing the Planet argued that there were clear indications that humans were courting disaster; these signs included traffic congestion, smog, wars over natural resources (such as over water in the Six-­Day War in 1967 and oil in the Persian Gulf War), erosion, the reduction of groundwater, carbon dioxide emissions, the hole in the ozone layer, and an increasing number of hurricanes and spells of drought.6 The Ehrlichs’ book illustrates how scientific apocalypticists remained unrelenting in broadcasting warnings over topics like overpopulation and resource decline as among the ills plaguing the planet. However, the global environmental problems that had become apparent in the 1980s served as the larger focus of scientific apocalypticists. Far from reaching the end of history as Fukuyama phrased it, environmentalists argued that Western civilization had reached a crossroads because of threats like global warming. The global crises that scientists warned about during the 1980s—​­climate change, the erosion of the ozone layer, and species extinction—​­dominated environmentalist writings during the 1990s. Scientists made no new significant discoveries of forthcoming planetwide crises; rather, environmentalists tried to raise public awareness and galvanize politicians to act. The results of their efforts were mixed. In 1992, the United Nations held the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the first international gathering of its kind dedicated to environmental issues. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) two years later highlighted, however, the lack of unity among

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various environmentalists in the United States. Groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Wildlife Federation felt it was better to support the agreement in the hopes of having a positive impact on Mexico in terms of environmental policy, while other groups like the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth opposed it because they felt it did not offer enough environmental protection.7 Another setback to the environmental movement came in 1997 when the U.S. Senate rejected the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming. The refusal of the Senate to accept the Kyoto restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions signaled to environmentalists that big energy wielded too much power in the United States.8 Across the Atlantic in Britain, environmentalism became “Europeanized” in the words of one scholar, as U.S. politicians seemed to reject a global cooperation on pending environmental concerns.9 Whereas in Australia, Britain, and Europe, Green political parties helped introduce environmental issues into the political arena in the 1970s and 1980s, the U.S. Green movement did not form an official political party until 1991. As American politicians hesitated to act on environmental issues, scientists and their associates persevered in their quest to convince Americans of the ecological crisis. In The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (1992), the physiologist Jared Diamond echoed the Ehrlichs’ belief that humanity had reached its defining moment: “Our species is now at the pinnacle of its numbers, its geographic extent, its power, and the fraction of the Earth’s productivity that it commands. . . . ​Our power threatens our own existence. We don’t know whether we shall suddenly blow ourselves up before we would otherwise expire in a slow stew caused by global warming, pollution, habitat destruction, more mouths to feed, less food to feed those mouths, and extermination of other species that form our resource base.”10 Ed Ayres, the editor of the environmentalist publication Worldwatch Magazine until 2004, agreed that the signs of a potential ecological apocalypse were evident and told his readers that the current generation’s reaction to those signs would make or break the human species.11 After detailing the signs of an environmental collapse, popular environmental writers usually offered a solution of some type as they had in prior decades. In the 1990s, scientists and popular science writers valued the importance of relating to the Earth in a new way over investing in technological solutions. The conclusion was that this new outlook would lead to change and that change would not be possible without it. The Ehrlichs’ solution was education and personal action, which in turn would transform society. In a

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purposeful echo of Christians tithing 10 percent of their income, they recommended everyone donate as much of their life to the cause.12 The “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” (1992), issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, written by the Nobel Prize–­winning physicist Henry Kendall, and signed by more than 1,700 scientists, argued for “a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. . . . ​This ethic must motivate a great movement, convincing reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes.”13 Then U.S. senator Al Gore in Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (1992) offered a political solution—​­a “Global Marshall Plan”—​ b ­ ut only after proposing that humans needed to recognize a moral component to the environmental crisis and close the gap between themselves and nature.14 Environmentalists during this period, as they had in the 1980s, asserted that while Western civilization was in trouble, the United States was its main troublemaker.15 Others stressed the bankruptcy of Western values. The biologist David Ehrenfeld, writing in 1993, placed the source of environmental troubles in the Western notion of progress and believed that the solution was a rejection of continual progress and growth in favor of a stable lifestyle “based in part on the inventive imitation of nature.”16 As a corollary to the notion that resolving the environmental crisis would require a transformation in our way of thinking about nature, many environmental apocalyptic writers tended to discount the redeeming qualities of technology, instead laying the blame for environmental ills on its misuse. Gore complained, “I have actually heard adult scientists suggest placing billions of strips of tin foil in orbit to reflect enough incoming sunlight away from the earth to offset the larger amount of heat now being trapped in the atmosphere.”17 According to Gore, trying to control nature was the original error, and solutions to environmental problems shouldn’t reproduce the original offense. The idea of using technology to address environmental ailments became immoral in the 1990s, the equivalent of committing cold-­blooded murder to prevent the rise of the Antichrist. Only those with pure hearts were worthy of saving the world from its eco-­sins. Technology might ameliorate the effects of human industrial activity, but it could not restore the world to Edenic innocence. Not everyone rejected technology as providing a solution to problems. In Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future (1992), a follow-­up to The Limits to Growth, Donella H.

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Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, and Jørgen Randers wrote “technical changes and efficiencies are possible and available, which can help maintain production of final goods and services while reducing greatly the burden on the planet.”18 However, straightforward assertions of a technological solution were rare. The journalist Ross Gelbspan also eschewed the language of spiritual transformation in The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-­up, the Prescription (1998), in which he argued that energy companies are undermining the effort to effect climate change. Even still, in speaking of the political implications of the environmental crisis that he felt was being made worse by corporate greed, Gelbspan spoke of the “fury” of the “resistance” and pled for society to unite in the face of the climate crisis.19 For Gelbspan, those who denied that global warming was occurring were acting insincerely for their own limited gains. As more environmentalists came to share Gelbspan’s convictions after the turn of the twenty-­first century, their opponents in the debate would seem malevolent. With premillennialists seeing environmentalists as doing the work of the Antichrist, even if unawares, the national discussion of climate change would assume an uncompromising quality. Gelbspan was pessimistic about the future of civilization if the environmental crisis was not resolved. He maintained that democracy would not endure environmental disasters, especially in poorer nations, while developed nations would have to institute martial law and would become prey to terrorists from countries that suffered the greatest from climate change.20 For already saved Christians in the dispensationalist scheme, their duty was to fight the Antichrist, but they believed they were part of a preconceived divine plan in which the forces of good would win. For scientific apocalypticists, there was no guarantee of victory and that too would affect the debate over the world’s destiny in the following decade. The more often environmentalists adopted vague spiritual solutions, the more persuaded conservative evangelicals became that they were promoting a false religion. At times the language of environmental authors showed a New Age influence, just as conservative evangelicals had feared since the 1980s. William Kötke, an environmentalist writer, used terms like “awareness” and “consciousness” to describe how humans should embrace new modes of thought. In a nebulous paragraph within his The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future (1993), a meandering book that covered the history of civilization from his personal point of view, he

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explained that humans “must start from here, from the point of our own awakening, not as a person socially defined but as a human ecologically defined. The reality of cosmic perspective—​­that is our awakening. Being here, in the real cosmos, we are not separate. This is our destiny, to awaken to the cosmic identity of Gaia.”21 Most scientific apocalypticists had no connection to the New Age movement and were merely borrowing the language of change they had inherited from the 1960s or trying to propagate ecological concepts. While science fiction writers had been debating since 1945 whether human destructiveness is inherent to Homo sapiens, environmentalist nonfiction writers did not ponder the same question until the 1990s. The increased participation of scientists other than ecologists in the environmental debate may have initiated this discussion. Diamond, whose doctorate was in physiology, concluded that analogues to our destructive behavior existed in the animal world.22 Humans differ from other animals in their behavior only in proportion, he avowed.23 In his own answer to the Fermi Paradox, Diamond believed that since our behavior differs from other species only in degree, then other intelligent life in the universe may suffer from similar problems as humans: “while Earth’s history thus offers little hope that radio civilizations exist elsewhere, it also suggests that any that might exist are short-­lived. Other intelligent civilizations that rose elsewhere probably reversed their own progress overnight, just as we now risk doing.”24 Though Diamond did not give in to despair in The Third Chimpanzee, that sort of thinking would become common. E. O. Wilson had a different take in his essay “Is Humanity Suicidal?” (1993). His argument was that the world would have been better off if humans had not been the species to become ascendant: “Darwin’s dice have rolled badly for Earth. It was a misfortune for the living world in particular, many scientists believe, that a carnivorous primate and not some more benign form of animal made the breakthrough.”25 Wilson’s teleological ­language—​­“the breakthrough” implying sentience is inevitable—​­shows the endurance of the idea that evolution was part of a cosmic plan, even among professional scientists. Kötke, not a scientist, offered a third opinion on the question of whether man is an especially destructive species. He did not think humans inflicted environmental ills because of innate characteristics of the human species. Rather, it is the nature of modern “civilized” man that is calamitous for the

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environment: “There was never a poison problem with the natural human family. Pollution, garbage, poisons, are specific to empire culture.”26 According to Kötke, tribal society also controlled its population and made sure not to overuse its resources, such as available meat.27 As in prior decades, writers still showed an affinity for primitivism, but Diamond’s and Wilson’s perspectives would prove to be more popular in coming years. Some writers observed that while humanity might commit suicide, the planet would go on as usual. Most nonfiction writers, however, avoided expressing that idea, which too easily lent itself to the thought that the planet would be better off without humans. Speculative fiction writers took that idea and ran with it in their futuristic visions. Despite the fact that most professional scientists shied away from that level of pessimism, the criticism that they used “doom-­and-­gloom” tactics persisted.28 The journalist Gregg Easterbrook remonstrated environmentalists in A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Optimism (1997), saying humans simply do not have the power to destroy the Earth.29 The three authors of Beyond the Limits addressed such indictments in their complaints about the reception of their previous work, The Limits to Growth. They wrote, “The book was interpreted by man as a prediction of doom, but it was not a prediction at all. It was not about a preordained future. It was about a choice. It contained a warning, to be sure, but also a message of promise.”30 The vanity of referring to their detractors as mankind coupled with the phrase “message of promise”—​­like the Good News of the Bible—​­only reinforced the impression that they were emulating religious apocalypticists. Although environmentalists became more conscious that they were employing the language and metaphors of premillennialism to emphasize environmental threats, they did not stop warning that the world might end. They found it impossible to inform the public about the dangers they believe existed without alluding to the end of the world. One scientist, Paul Halpern, was honest about the use of apocalyptic language by environmentalists: “Though scientists often borrow nomenclature and imagery from the biblical account [of the apocalypse in Revelation,] they use them for purely secular purposes. They do so because the images from the book of Revelation are so evocative that these pictures help us to fathom better the scope of possible global disaster.”31 The threat of environmental collapse was so great to these writers that they believed it warranted apocalyptic language, in spite of the resultant criticisms.

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Ayres would have agreed with Halpern about the usefulness of apocalyptic language in bringing about change. In 1999, he addressed the gripe that The Population Bomb was unreasonably apocalyptic in its assessment of the world’s future. In Ayres’s view, Ehrlich helped prevent the events that he predicted would come about because of overpopulation: “In the 1980s, when that catastrophe turned out to have been mitigated (only tens of millions starved), groups that opposed policies to stabilize population attacked Ehrlich for being a ‘doomsayer’—​­despite the fact that it was warnings like his that helped spur the social and agricultural interventions that prevented that outcome from being realized.”32 But even as scientists became more aware that their choice of language was laden with centuries of religious meaning, they didn’t reflect on the implications of such language. Nor did they recognize that they habitually used chiliastic patterns that mirrored evangelical ones. Their lack of awareness prevented them from examining too closely the solutions they reflexively copied from one another as well as from analyzing the best way to present the evidence that the world was warming. That more Americans were questioning scientific conclusions and products did not aid environmentalists in their cause. And Americans had lost faith in their own government, which would have to administer any environmental programs. The way one could dovetail the other was apparent in the growing visibility of conspiracy theories about the Space Race. Loss of faith in science and the government nurtured the belief among Americans that the Apollo missions to the moon never happened. The astronomer Philip Plait, in Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax” (2002), suggested that ten million to twenty-­five million Americans believed that NASA had faked the moon landings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, a theory that had first appeared right after Apollo 11. Helped along by websites dedicated to the issue on the Internet and a Fox network program in 2001 called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, this belief regained currency among Americans in the years preceding the millennium. Plait comments on the arguments made by those who believe the landings were a hoax: “In many cases they use simple physics and common sense to make their points. Usually their initial points make sense. However, they tend to misunderstand physics, and common sense may not apply on the airless surface of an alien world. Upon closer inspection, their arguments invariably fall apart.”33 After 9/11, similar commonsense arguments would be applied to the terrorist attacks, with over a third of

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Americans believing that the government was involved in 9/11 or failed to act on information to prevent it.34 The arguments of those who did not believe Americans landed on the moon showed the complicated nature of scientific issues in the modern era. As Plait notes, their arguments appeared logical; nonscientists might find them hard to debunk. The climatologist Stephen Schneider addressed the issue of the public understanding of complex scientific issues in his 1989 book on global warming: “If the public is to exercise its right to balance environmental, economic, and social values, then it must give informed advice to its political leaders. But how can any citizen send signals to politicians on complex issues neither understands very well?”35 For Schneider, the complexities of issues like global warming meant that scientists had to assume public roles as educators. A decline in scientific authority as the problem of nuclear weapons and the threat of environmental catastrophes loomed meant that in reality Americans decided complicated scientific issues less on the strength of the facts and argumentation behind them and more according to whether they meshed with their own sense of how the world worked. The contested nature of science during this period correlates to the postmodern criticism of science that emerged in the 1960s. In advocating solutions to existential threats, scientists gave in to the temptation to make claims that weren’t testable or supported in the literature and then relied on scientific infallibility as a defense. This undermined the believability of the original research that had suggested an emerging scientific threat.36 By the 1990s, this meant that most Americans stopped viewing science as unquestionable, whatever their religious beliefs. Americans of course did not completely reject science, but they became more reluctant to accede without pause to the arguments of scientists. Environmentalists’ frustration at American political inaction only worsened throughout the closing years of the twentieth century as environmental problems seemed to pile up. The continual threat of overwhelming ecological disasters became routine background in American science fiction. For instance, in the background of Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (1992) are pollution and the greenhouse effect among other societal ills.37 The same is true of Damon Knight’s Why Do Birds (1992). Though the novel ends with an apocalypse by a mysterious cause, overpopulation and pollution plague the world as depicted in the year 2002.38 Nuclear war became part of this background apocalypse. Fictional

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scenarios of all life or even civilization ending because of it were rare.39 Environmental practices were now the most important evidence of humanity’s original sin. Like Wilson’s essay “Is Humanity Suicidal?,” Keith Kirts’s The Devil’s Drainpipe: A Nuclear Waste Comedy (1992) suggested that species other than Homo sapiens would be better caretakers of the world. In Kirts’s “comedy,” yetis live unnoticed on a mountaintop, observing humanity’s wasteful ways. One yeti wishes that a virus would wipe out mankind: “The aberrant white skins bred like mice. Soon they would overrun the mountain, all the mountains, simply because they had filled up the valleys. . . . ​Why didn’t they recognize the elegance of the food chain like a normal species did?”40 Unlike in prior decades, writers disagreed over whether or not humanity deserved a Judgment Day for its eco-­crimes. The increased public awareness of radical environmentalism beginning in the 1980s led to scientific apocalypticists defining themselves against perceived extremism. Science fiction authors offered unsympathetic portrayals of environmental radicals as wanting to destroy humanity in order to save the planet. Tom Cool’s Infectress (1997) concerns a terrorist named Arabella who attempts to design a supervirus to solve the problem of overpopulation: “[Arabella and her followers] think of themselves as a force of nature, a breed spawned in reaction to the imbalance caused by overpopulation.”41 Cool became a writer after retiring from the U.S. Navy where he had served as a computer technician. He used feminism to discredit the environmental movement. The character of Arabella was a crazed, irrational woman whose personal issues caused her to seek a genocidal solution to environmental problems. Though more women were writing science fiction by the 1990s than in earlier periods, most scientific apocalypticists still tended to be white male writers writing about white male characters. While this would change in the opening decade of the twenty-­first century, prominent female science fiction writers of the 1990s like Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Connie Willis were writing works with universal themes, such as the tensions between culture and female identity, as in their respective novels, The Parable of the Sower (1993), Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995), and Doomsday Book (1992).42 Aspersions on feminism aside, a more favorable treatment of environmental radicalism came in T. Coraghessan Boyle’s novel A Friend of the Earth (2000), which tells the personal history of an ex-­radical environmentalist. Tyrone O’Shaughnessy Tierwater manages a menagerie of almost extinct animals such as hyenas, jackals, and lions for a pop star named Maclovio Pulchris in 2025, but in his youth, he was once part of a radical group called

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Earth Forever! (an allusion to Earth First!). In Friend of the Earth, radical environmentalists have failed in their mission to save the world, but their predictions have come true: the world is an ecological mess. The world has not ended, but it is not a hospitable place: “And people thought the collapse of the biosphere would be the end of everything, but that’s not it at all. It’s just the opposite—​­more of everything, more sun, water, wind, dust, mud.”43 Though the main character dreams of the eradication of mankind, it is not hatred of humanity that drives his vision but rather the thought of enjoying the Earth with his friends and family unencumbered by polluters.44 While Boyle’s novel confined the notion of an apocalypse leading to a millennium to a character’s fantasies, most writers still explicitly played out such hopes in their plotlines. These writers largely entered the debate over climate change on the side of the scientific consensus. Science fiction bromides littered the publishing field in their wake. Novels took creative license with environmental theory, such as the Gaia theory, much as they had in the 1980s.45 Authors still supposed that environmental problems could cause the end of civilization or the extinction of humanity and introduced only minor variations in how they approached the theme.46 Teleological evolution continued to promise the Earth new caretakers, who would be able to live sustainably, after the extinction of humanity.47 Natural selection or genetic engineering could also allow an Elect to enjoy the millennium, as scientific apocalypticists cast the Day of Doom as inevitable.48 New scientific ideas managed to penetrate the cover of cliché most writers sheltered behind. In the late 1980s, philosophers and computer scientists introduced the concept of posthumanism (or transhumanism), which was the idea that technology could transform humans until they resembled another species. Posthumanism offered science fiction writers a new concept to play with when trying to envision a way out of the environmental morass. Norman Spinrad’s science fiction novel Deus X (1992) related a posthuman future in which humans are able to upload their consciousness into a computer, thereby earning immortality. This development is the only way humanity could survive its environmental problems: “They say these are the last days. Moma Gaia’s been murdered by her idiot children, reefs all coral corpses, ice still going, waters still arising, biosphere melting away in the supertropic sun like a big jellyfish beached on the Martian shore.”49 At the end, the posthuman entities in the net start shutting down things to save the biosphere: computer consciousness had elevated human nature.

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During the 1990s, the growth of computer technology offered a new perspective on human destiny. In 1993 the computer scientist and science fiction writer Vernor Vinge gave a talk at a conference called “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-­Human Era.” This talk publicized his notion of the “singularity,” an idea he had put forth first in the early 1980s. The singularity refers to the point in time in which some sort of entity is created that surpasses human intelligence. This could happen through the creation of artificial intelligence, through the promulgation of computer networks that connect and become a single vast intelligence, through the use of networked computers to extend human intelligence, or through the biological enhancement of humanity. Vinge felt that it was impossible to make predictions about the future after reaching this point. While Vinge admitted that the result of the singularity might be ­negative—​­it might even result in the extinction of Homo sapiens—​­the singularity is not necessarily a negative vision, like the Terminator series that began in the 1980s or The Matrix trilogy (1999–­2003) in which robots and artificial intelligence try to eradicate their human creators.50 Vinge noted, “It could be a golden age that also involved progress. . . . ​Immortality (or at least a lifetime as long as we can make the universe survive) would be achievable.”51 The singularity became a powerful idea in the 1990s, especially among computer experts who awaited the future creation of artificial intelligence. A character in a book by the Scottish novelist Ken MacLeod referred to the “technological singularity” as the “rapture for nerds,” which seems an apt analogy in terms of the possible benefits to humanity from a singularity that some expect.52 Vinge emphasized the uncertainty of the future after the singularity in his own novels. In his Marooned in Realtime (1986), humanity reaches the singularity in the twenty-­third century and disappears completely, with no clues for time travelers (who travel into the future by putting themselves into a type of stasis) as to where they went. It really does resemble the Rapture, in that humans disappear suddenly, physically leaving the planet in the middle of everyday activities. But in A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Vinge suggested that “there were so many ways that an intelligent race could make itself extinct,” among them the singularity.53 The idea of the singularity illustrates how even fresh theories took on the form of premillennialist scenarios in scientific apocalypticism. Writers like Vinge could still envision salvation and meaning in a technological society, but some Americans, albeit still in the minority during the

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1990s, raised the specter of total annihilation. A TV movie from 1994, Without Warning, took on the format of Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast to show Americans (with the cooperation of the rest of the world) unwittingly declaring war on aliens who then bombard the planet with life-­ destroying meteors. That apocalypse was man-­made, but naturalistic apocalyptic films displayed the same optimism particular to American scientific apocalypses. Asteroid-­based extinction events formed the basis for two Hollywood films—​­Armageddon (1998) and Deep Impact (1998)—​­but in those films Americans find ways to save the planet by using industrial know-­how to destroy the asteroid and by preserving a remnant of humanity, respectively.54 American science fiction authors were just as likely to criticize the idea of technology as savior in the 1990s as they were to praise it. Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason’s novel Ill Wind (1995) detailed the use of a petroleum-­ eating virus to clean up a giant oil spill off San Francisco. The solution backfires, and the virus threatens everything petroleum-­based, bringing the world to its knees.55 Like Gore’s scoffing at “adult” scientists’ technological solutions, Ill Wind implied using technology to fix eco-­disasters would only make things worse. Even if technological solutions no longer seemed efficacious to either nonfiction or fiction writers, environmentalists, like antinuclear activists before them, believed fiction could be used as an educational and exhortative tool for conversion. In 1998 two separate novels appeared by authors who were sympathetic to the environmentalist cause but did not usually write fiction. Privileging information about the perceived environmental crisis over plot, character development, or engaging prose, these works gave detailed information about the environmental problems plaguing the world. A lawyer and environmentalist, Kevin E. Ready, portrayed a group of scientists who try to warn American politicians that they must take action on the environment immediately. In Gaia Weeps (1998), a computer-­modeling program named Gaia has revealed that the environmental problems are going to turn into outright disasters: “The ‘really’ bad news is that we appear to have crossed the line of no return on some problems and we are frighteningly close to the deadline for other things.”56 The predictions of the computer program begin to come true, as the ozone hole expands from Antarctica, burning people in New Zealand, Tasmania, and South Australia.57 Toward the end of the novel, a politico subjects his audience (and the reader) to a lengthy speech excoriating Americans for their complacency in ignoring environmentalists.58 Afterward, the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica slides into the ocean, creating a giant tsunami

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and increasing sea levels, which floods the National Mall in Washington, DC. After all that, the world doesn’t even end. The climate reaches a new equilibrium, and the novel ends with the warning that action is still necessary to forestall disaster.59 Rock Brynner, the son of the actor Yul Brynner and a historian who primarily wrote nonfiction, was even more sermonizing in his novel Doomsday Report (1998). A scientist falsifies a report on the environmental state of the world in order to galvanize the Earth’s governments into action, and long summaries of this fictional report pervade the novel: “The Belacqua Report shows that an irreversible cascade of extinctions has already begun, in which crucial species at the bottom of the food chain, especially marine and insect life, disappear, followed by species that feed upon them, collapsing the diversity critical to sustaining all the higher orders, ourselves included. In short, we have learned that the earth is dying: the process leading to the mass extinction of Homo sapiens over the next forty years, along with most other species, has already begun.”60 In addition to excerpts from the report, the scientist who wrote it gives long soliloquies to other characters about the environmental crisis.61 Although the scientist’s results are eventually revealed as false, the novel made it clear that all of the events the report describes could happen in the future if humanity does not change its ways; Brynner also included an appendix in which he exhorted readers to save the planet.62 Ready’s and Brynner’s warnings would become descriptions of a certain future in the minds of many environmental writers in the 2000s. Both writers recognized that fiction could enliven a message drowning in scientific particulars, but they also demonstrated the problem of fiction as environmental jeremiad. Their restrained endings disappointed readers that the promised climax didn’t come. As critics of dispensationalism have pointed out, the line between smug expectation and eager anticipation is very fine, even when we know it shouldn’t be. Both scientific and religious apocalypticists would have to deal with this tension because of the vogue of end-­times entertainment in the new century. Some novels imagined both nuclear war and environmental problems bedeviling the world, but as the decade wore on, wars in speculative fiction were more likely to result from environmental problems rather than to coexist with them. In Will Bradley’s Ark Liberty (1992), the end of the human species occurs in 2084 through the effects of global warming and the ensuing nuclear wars as countries fight for remaining natural resources.63 In a callboth on land and back to the biblical story of Noah, arks are built—​­

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undersea—​­to ensure that some humans and other species of plants, animals, and insects will survive. The arks start to repopulate the planet six hundred years later after the Earth has healed, and humanity has a chance to start anew through the crisis.64 Similar to Bradley’s story of environmental problems leading to war, environmentalists interpreted the Persian Gulf War as a war over natural resources, a preview of the world to come if industrialized nations do not make changes. But to those concerned about nuclear proliferation, it foreboded a future in which a dangerous madman might obtain a bomb and other countries might have to go to war to prevent him from using it.65 In Teretha G. Houston’s Armageddon at Defcon 1 (1999), an Iraqi general bent on revenge for the Persian Gulf War conspires to humble the United States by bombing it. A genius military scientist designs an antiballistic missile system that ultimately thwarts the attack. But although the technological prowess of the United States is the solution to the nuclear crisis, the narrator criticizes Americans’ false sense of security: “The United States believed that the threat of a nuclear attack was a thing of the past, something found only in history books in the chapter titled ‘The Cold War.’ And the world believed that the threat of a global nuclear war ended when the first chip of the Berlin Wall hit the ground.”66 9/11 would prove that statement true in the minds of Americans. In contrast to the ubiquitous amount of American apocalyptic fiction, British apocalyptic novels and films were fewer in number in the 1990s than in previous decades. With the Cold War over and the economy expanding steadily after a brief recession, British science fiction was less apocalyptic than it had been in earlier decades.67 Even though people in England were no less worried about the environment, Great Britain has a long history of dealing with extended crises. Being able to call upon memories of events like surviving the Battle of Britain (1940) or weathering the postwar economic downturn, the British, in a time of prosperity, may have had an easier time imagining solutions to global problems without recourse to the apocalyptic metaphor. Post-­Thatcher political statements populated the fictional apocalyptic landscape in Britain, as for instance, in the mystery novelist P. D. James’s The Children of Men (1992). Her novel was about a world in which fertility has disappeared and an authoritarian government is governing England, at least until an antigovernment group finds a pregnant woman. Rather than serving as the basis for humanity’s salvation, however, the discovery turns into a

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struggle for dictatorial power, with Theodore Faron unable to resist using the baby to seize power and become Warden of England.68 The American-­born English director Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys also featured a twisted dictatorial state arising from the ashes of a society decimated by a man-­made plague. Other Anglophonic media, such as the Canadian film Last Night (1998) and the Australian novel Shade’s Children (1997), offered visions of total destruction with a pervading sense of hopelessness, but neither produced too many waves in the American market. That other inheritance from Britain—​­dispensationalism—​­had also become distinctively American. The culture wars that embroiled national politics in the United States included conservative evangelicals as prominent combatants. But for them, the culture wars had begun much earlier, in the 1920s. As women wore shorter skirts on their dates to dance halls, movies, or even boxing matches, conservative evangelicals worried that America’s id had wrested control of the national personality, leading young people astray.69 In the 1990s, challenging abortion laws, opposing the ban on formal prayers in schools, protesting gay rights, questioning affirmative action, and attacking the teaching of evolution were not evidence of a new mentality or approach. Such actions were perfectly consistent with what conservative evangelicals had been doing throughout the century; the difference was that in the 1990s conservative evangelicals were not alone in seeing American culture as far too secular and worldly. When liberals called for tolerance and diversity in the Clinton era, conservatives heard cries for immorality and handouts. Premillennialists added those things to the list of signs that Jesus had to be coming back soon. Conservative evangelicals didn’t always make it clear why opposing policies like affirmative action was necessary if the world was ending anyway, but in general they saw such programs as part of a larger worldview that privileged atheistic secular humanism over Christianity. Their duty, as premillennialists saw it, was to oppose the construction of a world friendly to the Antichrist. In matters of foreign policy, the Persian Gulf War that kicked off the post–­Cold War decade exercised conservative evangelicals as much as previous wars in the Middle East had. Dispensationalists saw it as a forerunner of the war of Armageddon that would be situated in the Middle East.70 In One World: Biblical Prophecy and the New World Order (1991), a discussion among the Baptist minister and televangelist John Ankerberg, the conservative evangelical author Dave Hunt, and the independent minister David Breese concluded with the consensus that the war, to the extent that it produced

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environmental consequences (oil fires), could lead to a world dictator coming to power via the environmental movement. Their discussion revealed how the three ministers believed that ecological problems were real, but that the Antichrist would use them to control the world. While Ankerberg asserted that “the Gulf War produced the greatest environmental disaster of history,” Hunt countered that it was a sign of the impending world government that would be necessary to “enforce world ecology.”71 Ankerberg invoked a scientist’s opinion in his account of the war as possibly leading to the rise of the Antichrist: “if they don’t get a cap on these fires and one of Carl Sagan’s predictions is correct that it may wipe out the harvests of one of these eastern countries such as India, then you would have an illustration that would strengthen the ecological movement and add additional impetus to the peace movement.”72 The idea that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could help trigger Armageddon remained a powerful one among conservative evangelicals as well as scientific apocalypticists. As late as 1999, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, the evangelical cowriters of the Left Behind series, implied that Hussein might have grand ambitions toward the Middle East, suggesting that “it is difficult to explain the bizarre behavior of Saddam Hussein without thinking him quite possibly demon-­possessed.”73 Despite the end of the Cold War and the appearance of a new problem in the guise of Hussein, Russia was still believed to be the Magog that would move against Israel during the battle of Armageddon. Popular Bible prophecy experts correspondingly argued that Russia was still a threat to the world.74 Billy Graham in Storm Warning (1992) noted, “Despite the talk of nuclear disarmament and the apparent end of the Soviet Union, the world is still very much under the threat of nuclear war and nuclear war accident.”75 Lindsey, who was virulently anti-­Communist in his earlier works, argued in Planet Earth—​­2000 a.d.: Will Mankind Survive? (1994) that “Russia still poses a real danger to the United States, with its modernized nuclear force which took decades to build aimed at our nation like a gun to our head.”76 Since the threat of nuclear war still existed and would undoubtedly occur during the Tribulation period or during the final battle of Armageddon, Bible prophecy continued to use nuclear winter to explain particular judgments in Revelation. Writers described the effects of nuclear winter with darkened skies, falling temperatures, and the poisoning of the seas and freshwater sources.77 Several writers, including the psychiatrist and evangelical novelist Paul Meier, mentioned the possibility of the ozone layer being harmed in a

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nuclear war.78 Nuclear war would explain verses that detailed judgments in which the power of the sun is increased (the ozone layer), in which men are engulfed in darkness (nuclear winter) or are plagued by sores (radiation sickness), and in which the sun turns black and the moon turns red (atmospheric pollution from dust).79 The consensus among Bible prophecy experts on the significance of the Persian Gulf War and the continued threat from Russia did not extend to environmental issues during the 1990s. More conservative evangelicals expressed skepticism over the claims of environmentalists with regard to issues like global warming than in previous decades, even as some Bible prophecy writers continued to incorporate environmental concerns into their visions of the End and promote Christian stewardship (caretaking of the environment as a Christian duty). The political scientists James L. Guth and Lyman A. Kellstedt reported on the result of surveys they conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s of how voters and the clergy viewed environmental issues, broken down by religious affiliation, in “How Green Is My Pulpit?” (1996). They disclosed that both evangelical ministers and laypeople were less concerned with the environment than Catholics or mainline Protestants.80 According to their research, two factors predict whether a Christian will refuse to support environmentalism: “Premillennial eschatology, in particular, is strongly associated with suspicion of environmental causes, as is identification with fundamentalism.”81 But, while most premillennialists did not support environmentalism, there was a great deal of disagreement as to whether the environmental problems propelling the movement were real or invented. A number of Christian apocalypticists expressed concern over such global issues as global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, and mass species extinction while detailing the signs of the end-­times. Billy Graham in a 1992 book mentioned global warming, the weakening of the ozone layer, and decreasing biodiversity as environmental problems that society should be worried about, concluding, “There is no doubt the earth is in trouble.”82 Lindsey, as he had in earlier works, continued to list ecological crises as signs of the End in a 1994 book.83 He included sections on overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, the ozone layer, desertification, the diminishing rain forests, and pollution. In his Apocalypse Code (1997), he also discussed environmental problems like global warming, suggesting, “No one seems to know why the Planet is experiencing so many radical shifts in ecology in such a short period of time.”84 Although Lindsey believed the environment was in crisis, he did not

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hesitate to criticize environmentalists. While discussing Revelation 6:7–­8, he suggested the passage reveals that one-­fourth of the world’s population will be killed by wild beasts during the Tribulation period as part of God’s judgment. He saw a precedent to that judgment already occurring: “In Colorado, Montana and California there have been recent reports of bears eating people, destroying homes and attacking livestock. Why the change? Because, thanks to misguided environmentalism, bear hunting is a no-­no.”85 He chastised politicians for cooperating with the environmental movement, as when President Clinton set aside land in Utah in 1996 for a national park. The problem that Lindsey saw with this was that “all this is merely part of the U.N.’s bigger picture—​­‘Agenda 21,’ a blueprint for global environmental dictatorship that calls for ‘re-­wilding’ at least half the continental United States. The premise of the whole program is that human society is a cancer on the planet and that radical surgery is required to bring it under control.”86 As American premillennialists had claimed since the late nineteenth century, Bible prophecy scholars pressed on with the idea that scientists were continually making discoveries that could reveal how events in Revelation would take place.87 Tim LaHaye, in his foreword to a 1996 end-­times book, approved of the scientific unease about the future—​­humanity would destroy itself if God did not step in.88 Other conservative evangelicals took exception with politicians or scientists who addressed the nuclear or environmental issues.89 Gore’s Earth in the Balance inspired particular umbrage among conservative evangelical writers.90 The vice president’s discussion of Lovelock’s Gaia thesis led these writers to conclude that Gore was knee-­deep in the New Age movement; he earned special enmity for calling himself a practicing Baptist. A contributor to a conservative Presbyterian journal, Joyce G. Bradshaw, in her article “The Earth Is the Lord’s” (1993), said that despite Gore’s professed religious affiliation, his solutions are consistent with pagan viewpoints and not on “the sure foundation of Baptist (Christian) teaching.”91 The evangelist Texe Marrs was even less generous toward Gore, accusing him of being a “Mother Earth worshipper and closet occultist” who espouses a “satanic plan” to create a New World Order.92 While some prophecy writers continued to use science to bolster their interpretations, others underscored that God controls the processes of science. J. E. Kirk, an Oklahoma evangelist, attributed some of the judgments of Revelation, such as the death of the oceans and freshwater sources, to the expiration of the sun in his novel The Last Shall Be First (1993). But scientists did not detect it because “they were too preoccupied with proposing or

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modifying their theories dealing with the beginnings of the universe—​ ­theories that had no place for God as the Creator of it all. And because of their foolishness, God hid His truths from these men.”93 At the end of the novel, all-­out nuclear war is about to destroy the world but just as Christ returns, God takes control. His angels redirect the missiles to the Valley of Megiddo, where they explode without harming anyone but do generate a molten pool, rather conveniently given the Antichrist and his false prophet were to be thrown into a lake of fire.94 In another example, a meteorologist-­ penned novel, The Age of the Antichrist (2000), the war takes place and nuclear winter ensues. Jonathan Cash’s scientific training led him to accept the science behind nuclear winter, but he depicts God as sending an angel out to turn up the heat from the sun, which dries up the clouds.95 As they had in the Reagan era, dispensationalists predicted the Antichrist would likely come to power either by taking advantage of an ecological crisis or through the efforts of environmentalists to unite the world politically.96 In the 1990s, authors incorporated UFOs and aliens into their account of how the Antichrist would take power, as an extension of the New Age fears that had emerged in the 1980s. In His Image: Book One of the Christ Clone Trilogy (1997) by James BeauSeigneur, a conservative evangelical author with a background in national security, showed the Antichrist promising a New Age to the post-­Rapture world, aided by spirit masters (who are actually demons in the guise of aliens). The Antichrist sounds like a science fiction writer in his announcement: “The New Age is not just some fad, some passing fancy. It is the result of a maturing, a ripening of the human species in preparation for the final and most glorious step in its evolution.”97 Conservative evangelicals who still emphasized stewardship of the environment also stressed the obligation to reject any New Age influence on the environmental movement.98 They pressed the point that Christians should be aware of this influence, charging that environmentalists worship nature and do not place the proper value on humanity.99 Graham, after listing the problems the environment is suffering in Storm Warning, cautioned, “Supporters of the movement calling for ‘environmental stewardship’ often appear to worship, not the God of heaven, but the God of nature. This is a dangerous form of idolatry in itself.”100 Graham differentiated himself from many of his dispensationalist colleagues in asserting that God did not want humans to trash the Earth while waiting for the apocalypse. One persistent criticism of premillennialists was that their belief that the Earth would ultimately be destroyed after the

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millennium rendered caring for the environment pointless.101 An evangelical writer on environmental issues, Sydney L. Donahoe, in “Caring for Creation” (1992), admitted that current crises may simply be heralding what will happen at the end of the world.102 Nevertheless, Donahoe maintained, “Scripture has shown us that being a good caretaker is part of living a ‘holy and godly life.’ So the certainty of the earth’s destruction obviously doesn’t excuse us from our obligation to care for God’s creation.”103 Still, accepting that the environment was in trouble did not necessarily lead Bible prophecy writers to propose that anything should be done about it. Lindsey told his readers that trying to ameliorate environmental problems was a hopeless endeavor, and he believed that ecological disasters could be a divine punishment.104 At times Lindsey even employed environmentalist language in his 1990s works. He called humans “suicidal,” saying that overpopulation shows that “Homo Sapiens have to be the most suicidal creatures on Earth.”105 He also used the metaphor of Earth as a spaceship so popular with environmentalists to make the point that humanity had to take care of its environment.106 Lindsey nevertheless wanted his readers to know that despite his concern for the environment he had not become radicalized. He cautioned: “Now, I hope I don’t sound like a member of Earth First! Because my real concern is not for plants and animals and trees but for people. But the destruction of the environment has awesome consequences for man.”107 Without a hint of irony, he proclaimed that he had done more than anyone else in the country to make Americans aware of environmental degradation.108 However astounding Lindsey’s declaration was, his statements show how conservative evangelicals delicately balanced their concerns over the New Age movement with a belief that the environmental disasters described by scientists reinforced their interpretations of the Bible. Despite the above authors who thought the Bible predicted environmental degradation, a growing number of conservative evangelicals rejected the science behind the environmental movement. The repeated refrain of evangelicals who contested environmentalism was that scientists do not agree on the issues.109 Similar arguments that fundamentalist Christians used to oppose evolution appeared—​­for instance, that global warming is merely a theory masquerading as fact. William A. Hoesch, an evangelical with a master’s degree in geology, explained the apparent dispute among scientists in a 1994 article: “For example, most people are not aware that there is no consensus yet existing in the scientific community that ‘global warming’ even has been determined to be real, much less to be a dangerous [sic].”110 Hoesch thought it

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was likely that information was being withheld from the public, saying that there had been previous “scares” over the ozone layer.111 What scientists need is hard data, according to Hoesch; their predictions are nothing more than propaganda in service of socialist desires to hurt the West, in his view.112 Hoesch, who has articles about geology posted on the Institute of Creation Research’s website, illustrates the dovetailing of creationist science and the science promulgated in Bible prophecy works. The language of conspiracy dominated charges that the environment was not as bad off as environmentalists described. John F. McManus, the president of the conservative John Birch Society, saw an insidious motive in the actions of environmentalists: “Behind the seemingly innocuous environmental movement lurks a plan to destroy the industrialization that has led to marvelous machines, great comforts, better health, and a higher standard of living. Its leaders want neither personal freedom nor national independence. If they have their way, these neo-­pagans will usher in a return to poverty, filth, heat in summer, cold in winter, and the misery of earlier centuries.”113 Part of the impetus behind charges of conspiracy was a perceived attack on Christianity. The Bible-­Science News, a creationist magazine published by an association of the same name, reported in 1992 that “the environmentalist movement is becoming more bold in its frontal attack on Christianity. It is also becoming more bold in openly admitting that its position grows out of a pagan, evolutionary interpretation of the universe.”114 Hoesch and others who disputed environmentalists speculated that global warming was a fiction that environmentalists only proposed in order to bring about a world government and religion.115 Marrs took this notion even further, arguing that the Illuminati might decide to forcibly depopulate the world by releasing a virus.116 Conspiracy fit easily into the dispensationalist belief that the Antichrist would first and foremost be a deceiver of humanity. Communism had fit the bill for a “worldwide religion” because Americans at the height of the Cold War believed spies and sympathizers could be anyone. Easily accomplished was the replacement of that specter with environmentalism, which naturally led to the idea that liberal opponents in the climate change debate were outright liars. The decline in scientific authority in American society merely aided this interpretation. The arguments of anti-­environmentalists made other inroads than just stimulating skepticism toward the reality of trends like global warming. Some conservative evangelicals outright endorsed capitalism as God’s preferred economic system, whatever the consequences to the environment.

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Lindsey repeatedly contended in his writings that socialist governments are much worse polluters than governments of capitalist countries.117 Ken Ewert, a Christian businessman and writer, expressed his opinion in a 1996 article that God supports private property because it is better for the environment. Ewert wrote, “But while God has given men great freedom in ruling over His creation His laws also place definite limits on what man can do with it. . . . ​ Significantly, the Bible does not exhort us to take good care of ‘the environment,’ but rather to good care of our property, our piece of nature.”118 The trend of adhering to supernatural rather than naturalistic explanations of biblical prophecies accelerated in the 1990s.119 Supernatural judgments trumped scientific ones in LaHaye and Jenkins’s fictional series Left Behind (1995–­2007). Although a nuclear war occurs in the second book of the series, the authors do not use it to explain any of God’s judgments. Where other authors have seen a nuclear exchange or environmental crises causing various prophetic punishments, such as the poisoning of the oceans, the moon turning red, and non-­Christians suffering from sores, Left Behind steadfastly eschews those explanations.120 Even wormwood, which premillennialists have historically viewed as representing a meteor impact, was supernatural (the narrative emphatically describes it as not being a meteor because of its unusual composition) in the series.121 The Antichrist relied on science to explain away incidents such as the temporary but debilitating darkness in Apollyon (1999) (caused by a supernova), but context makes it clear that this is just posturing on the part of the character.122 While LaHaye and Jenkins avoided using science to explain prophetic events in their series, they did employ science in their nonfiction work Are We Living in the End Times? (1999). In describing the opening of the seals, they make a distinction between judgments caused by man and judgments caused by God directly. According to LaHaye and Jenkins, man-­made disasters were the judgments of the first four seals, but the sixth was divine in nature. They used science to describe the sixth seal’s judgment, explaining that an earthquake could cause volcanic activity, which in turn could throw ash into the atmosphere and blacken the sun, redden the moon, and darken the skies.123 Although LaHaye and Jenkins did not decline to use science per se, their much more influential fiction series rejected scenarios that used nuclear war or environmental disasters to explain God’s judgments during the Tribulation. This would change in another decade after 9/11. Despite the rejection of such scenarios by the Left Behind authors, most

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Bible prophecy writers still incorporated the same interpretations of particular passages as being the effects of nuclear weapons that had been appearing since 1945.124 While conservative evangelicals could not agree on the relationship between environmental problems and their prophetic worldview during the 1990s, Bible prophecy writers continued to pinpoint passages that they newly felt described nuclear power or destruction. David Reagan, an evangelical minister, found in the book of Luke a description of the discovery of nuclear weapons: “Jesus said that in the end times one of the signs will be ‘men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken’ (Luke 21:26). It sounds like the splitting of the atom to me—​­and the subsequent development of nuclear weapons.”125 Lindsey offered his fans a new interpretation of a passage that describes how God will punish nations that move against Israel (Zechariah 14:12), explaining, “This is exactly the way a neutron bomb works. A soldier is hit by a burst of radiation that leaves only a skeleton within a nanosecond.”126 Even though interpretations of the Bible regarding nuclear war, which were based on the observations of scientists like Sagan, remained stable, the growing ambivalence of Bible prophecy writers toward the environmental movement betrayed the ongoing fear that science could mislead people into accepting false conclusions. In The Day Evil Dies (1999), Clifford Goldstein, a Seventh-­day Adventist, made an observation about science that most other conservative evangelicals would have supported: “Satan has been especially effective through what the New Testament depicts as ‘science falsely so called’ (1 Timothy 6:20). . . . ​Accepting the authority of modern secular science, such individuals reject the clear teaching of the Word at the peril of their own souls.”127 By the end of the millennium, secular and religious Americans believed that a test of their preparations for future disasters was imminent. The Y2K event at the end of the millennium threatened to undermine electronic society. The decision of early computer scientists to encode a two-­digit year instead of a four-­digit year onto microchips might have caused systems to crash when the year rolled around to double zeros; the revelation put some Americans into survivalist mode, a movement that has endured. Two software engineers authored The Complete Y2K Home Preparation Guide in which they stressed preparations like storing water and food as well as buying generators and ham radios. The authors echoed a long line of scientific apocalypticists

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when they called the potential crisis of Y2K a “wake-­up call,” praising “the good that could come out of this event.”128 Y2K turned out to be a nonevent; the completely unexpected terrorist attacks on 9/11, not Y2K, ended the peaceful and prosperous period of the 1990s for Americans, inspiring a new wave of anxiety over nuclear weapons. Amid growing doubts about science, religious and scientific apocalypticists agreed that science and technology were not likely to see humanity out of its morass. For some science writers and science fiction authors, the solution was to promulgate a new philosophy that would make humans more connected to nature. For conservative evangelicals, the emphasis on God’s ultimate control over the environment as well as rejecting the arguments of environmentalists outright began to seem more consistent with their understanding of the world. Scientific apocalypticists did not entirely embrace mysticism nor did religious apocalypticists become entirely against science or technology. However, just as the scientific and religious apocalypticists had been co-­opting each other’s concerns since the late nineteenth century, both responded to the sense that pure science could no longer explain or resolve the problems of humanity. After 9/11, this pessimism about technology would contribute to societal despair about the future.

Chapter 7

Post-­9/11 Despair

The 9/11 terrorist attacks exposed Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” as a pipe dream. Americans had spent the last decade prosperously surfing the Internet and squabbling over sexual harassment, presidential infidelity, the Western canon, and abortion rights, but 9/11 unified the country only temporarily. What had seemed to be a series of tiresome spats in which only a safe society living in luxury could indulge turned out to be evidence of a profound disagreement over national identity.1 Scientific and religious apocalypticists are on opposite sides in this ongoing dispute, but even so their apocalyptic predictions continue to show commonalities. Their greatest point of agreement is when the end-­times will commence: now. Just as Americans during the Vietnam War felt trapped in a quagmire, during the War on Terror they also felt powerless, as the war in Afghanistan replaced Vietnam as the country’s longest and most morally complex war. Americans came to terms with the reality that the United States dived into the quagmire in Vietnam, rather than innocently stepping into it, but they lacked a consensus on the sources of Islamic terrorism or how to address it.2 The Great Recession, as the 2007 economic crisis was called, bared divisions within both major parties. Though George W. Bush signed off on the government bailout of the nation’s “too-­big-­to-­fail” banks, resorting to a big government answer during an emergency left many Americans feeling betrayed, giving rise to the Tea Party by 2009. That Democrats assented to the bailout angered Americans on the left who felt that corporate interest had taken over politics and perpetuated the gap between the poorest and richest Americans. The American apocalyptic, in both its scientific and religious forms,

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reflects the disappointment many harbor toward the U.S. system now that it is caught between two visions of the past, present, and future. Scientific apocalyptic imaginings in the United States have attained a gloomier sensibility on par with the British apocalyptic in prior decades. Scientists assert that the world has already reached a “point of no return” in relation to climate change. In fiction, writers use the old premillennialist formulae but have become just as likely to engage in nihilistic speculation about human destiny. Perhaps most important, the Internet and the ease of self-­publishing have left Americans awash in a sea of apocalypticism. In the 2000s and 2010s, a whole host of apocalyptic fears, including zombie and vampire doomsdays, global plagues (man-­made and natural), a decline in human fertility, genocidal artificial intelligence or robots, rapacious or indifferent aliens, catastrophic wars with alternate universes, secular and religious raptures, as well as world-­ending asteroid and planetary collisions have saturated fiction and film.3 Most of these premises popped up here and there throughout the twentieth century in Western film and fiction but never have so many variations on doomsday materialized in such a short period of time. The Western apocalyptic in the wake of 9/11 has become less distinguishable according to national origins, partly because of increased international collaboration in media due to technology, but also because of a shift in the way Americans conceive the End. In the early twenty-­first century, the futuristic stories that Americans tell themselves more often end in deliberate and inevitable human extinction as an analogue for communal despair over apparent national decline, political intractability, terrorist threats, dwindling natural resources, climate change, and species extinction. For premillennialists, the world has always been ending, even if political success dating to the 1980s moderated imminent expectations. The success of the Left Behind series (1995–­2007) inspired new authors to add their own eschatological readings to the body of Bible prophecy literature, as both detractors and supporters offered their own interpretations of Left Behind’s events. In prior decades, Bible prophecy works predicted that the Antichrist would exploit Catholics, Communists, secular humanists, New Age devotees, UFO believers, and environmentalists in order to usher in the Tribulation, but 9/11 made Islam the central actor in most post-­2001 works of Bible prophecy. So long as Bush was president, conservative evangelicals felt as if the United States was doing enough to fight against Islam, but when Barack Obama became president in 2008, conservative prophecy writers suggested that the United States would be culpable in the predicted end-­times attack on

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Israel by nations with Muslim-­majority populations. Obama himself was a flashpoint in the ongoing culture wars, and his election victories in 2008 and 2012 convinced conservatives they had no hope of restoring the United States to (what they perceived) as its Christian origins. At the beginning of the millennium, the key political issue promised to be the environment. During the 2000 presidential election, environmental degradation was a major campaign issue with Democratic candidate Al Gore, Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, and Republican candidate George W. Bush all declaring support for environmental protection. Bush supported state and local environmental regulations while also advocating using federally protected lands to drill for oil and to exact other resources. Gore had the tentative support of the mainstream environmentalist movement but walked a fine line between criticizing Bush’s environmental record in Texas and eschewing the more radical policies of Nader, who in turn charged that Gore was more verbal than productive on environmental issues. After the Bush v. Gore (2000) Supreme Court decision effectively won Bush the presidency, Gore became a major voice for the environmentalist movement, at least for a while, as he forsook political office to barnstorm around the United States about climate change. Though Clinton had signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, an international agreement to reduce CO2 emissions, the president never submitted it to Congress for ratification because of the Senate’s position that it would not sign any legally binding international treaty. Bush hardened this reluctance into policy in March 2001, saying that the United States would not commit to global carbon restrictions in fear of negative economic repercussions. Bush argued that without similar restrictions placed on developing nations, the treaty would devastate American economic growth. The British and the Europeans criticized the United States, while major environmentalist groups alongside Democrats denounced Bush for a “unilateral” stance. For a while, the terror attacks on 9/11 gave Bush a reprieve from condemnation, as he took action to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, invading Afghanistan in 2002 to remove the Taliban regime that had given Bin Laden shelter. Although Congress supported Bush in 2003 when he decided to invade Iraq, domestic and international critics eventually denounced his foreign policy, which included his unwillingness to make an international agreement on carbon emissions. American films, novels, and short stories about the environment, coming on the heels of Bush’s Kyoto announcement, forecast a darker future than in previous decades. The film The Day After Tomorrow (2004) familiarized the

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public with the idea of an environmental tipping point, beyond which climate change is unavoidable. It pictured the disruption of the jet stream from a warming ocean, resulting in catastrophic, permanent climate change, in this case freezing most of the Northern Hemisphere (implausibly, most of North America flash-­ freezes). The drama revolves around a paleo-­ climatologist trying to rescue his son in New York City, a setting that provides powerful optics such as the Statue of Liberty up to her hips in snow. As in Planet of the Apes (1968), the imagery signified the unthinkable—​­America destroyed. But whereas in Planet of the Apes the statue’s demise additionally meant the passing of the human world, The Day After Tomorrow pulled back from delivering such a desolate message. The nations below the equator welcome Americans (and other refugees from the Northern Hemisphere) into their homes, while Americans pledge to share their skills and knowledge in return. The ending promises a cheery, one-­world future (along the lines of what mainstream environmentalists of the 1970s had promoted through corporate-­sponsored Earth Day events), ignoring the conflicts between the global North and South over industrially generated environmental threats.4 However controversial the science in The Day After Tomorrow, Gore’s film (and subsequent book) An Inconvenient Truth (2006) earned accolades for presenting similar ideas, even if they were more scientifically rigid. The Detroit Free Press’s reviewer, who complained of The Day After Tomorrow that only the graphics were engaging, albeit “in a Powerpoint-­presentation sort of way,” praised Gore’s film for actually making a PowerPoint-­based case for environmental action.5 The documentary features the former vice president giving a lecture in a classroom regarding the evidence for man-­made global warming. Footage showcasing Gore’s political career and personal achievements commingle with charts tracking temperature over time and photos of ice loss. In the backdrop are Gore’s loss of the presidency in 2000 and the trajectory of Gore’s political fight against global warming, which he cites as beginning as early as the 1970s. Politics can have a positive effect, Gore suggests, but the current president Bush had failed to act. What is needed, per Gore, is a personal determination on the part of every American to make personal changes, such as recycling or driving fuel-­efficient cars, even if the government is unwilling to act. Bush’s lack of action juxtaposed with projections of a runaway greenhouse effect and maps of cities underwater fashion an ominous display, consistent with the increasing pessimism of American culture at the turn of the millennium. Gore’s film marked a saturation point for climate-­ change awareness

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among Americans. The year before, Hurricane Katrina, one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the Gulf of Mexico, had devastated Louisiana as well as parts of Mississippi and Alabama. Though long predicted, as for instance, in Ted Steinberg’s Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster (2000), Americans still gaped at the human tragedy that ensued when the storm waters overtook the levees protecting New Orleans, which is located in a bowl-­ shaped depression at the mouth of the Mississippi River.6 Katrina not only made Americans denounce local, state, and federal governments for their lack of preparedness but also brought to the fore of the environmental conversation the topic of how warming oceans may generate stronger and more frequent hurricanes. The news media highlighted other consequences of climate change, such as melting glaciers and permafrost threatening species’ habitats. In April 2006, a month before Gore’s film opened, Time magazine ran a cover photo of a polar bear on a tiny piece of ice floating in a sea of melting icebergs. The accompanying article announced, “By any measure, Earth is at the tipping point,” meaning that it may already be too late to stop climate change caused by human action.7 The failure of the world once again to agree on carbon emissions limits in Copenhagen in 2009 contributed to newly alarming language in environmentalists’ works. That same year, the scientist Jim Hansen published his first book, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (2009). Hansen covered the science behind global climate change, disclosing his assessment that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere was already past a safe point and still climbing. He warned of the “runaway greenhouse effect,” as had scientists and science fiction writers in the prior decades, but said, “I’ve come to conclude that if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty.”8 Hansen’s book contains more description than prescription, but he notes toward the end that there is a “potential” for humanity to endure if we abandon fossil fuels and the human population declines.9 In Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet (2010), Bill McKibben also concluded that, as a species, humans had already reached a point of no return. He reports, “Global warming is no longer a philosophical threat, no longer a future threat, no longer a threat at all. It’s our reality. We’ve changed the planet, changed it in large and fundamental ways.”10 We shouldn’t even

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call the planet “Earth” any more, McKibben writes, because it is so changed it deserves a new name. Eaarth warns of coming food shortages, mass extinctions, extreme weather events, and a dying ocean. McKibben argues that Americans must abandon the pursuit of economic growth, and society should disperse in favor of following a small, local, and sustainable lifestyle. McKibben’s focus on an individual ecological ethic seems provincial in light of the conclusion of the journalist Elizabeth Kolbert that humanity is in the process of causing a sixth mass extinction event. Homo sapiens may not be ingenious enough to address what is a global ecological disaster encompassing all living things, but even more importantly to Kolbert in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (2014) is that “we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed.”11 Asteroids, climate change, or other natural events caused previous extinction events, according to Kolbert, but humans have now attained the ability to wreak damage on an existential level encompassing many future epochs. As science fiction authors had been doing since the beginning of the nuclear age, Kolbert’s analysis implied that humans have an innate flaw, lacking in other species, in a secularized concept of original sin that places humans above the natural world. As with religious apocalypticists, such predictions of an unstoppable process have left scientific apocalypticists open to the charges of opportunism. One might ask, if the world is doomed, why is someone writing a book about it for profit? As in the case of religious apocalypticists, we should resist the urge to declare environmentalists who believe the End is certain as insincere. Religious apocalypticists rarely admit that they write Bible prophecy to satisfy an internal need, but they do see themselves as performing a duty to convert others, either before the Rapture or after, when their books might provide assistance to someone left behind. Environmentalists like Hansen or McKibben no doubt want to get our attention and probably possess more hope than they confess, but they likely also trust that they are performing a public good by making Americans face the consequences of their pursuit of progress and affluence. Some environmentalists have acted on such pessimistic assessments of humanity’s future by opting out of activism. Paul Kingsnorth, an English environmentalist, has founded the Dark Mountain Project, conceived as “a creative space in which people can come to terms with the unraveling of much of the world we have all taken for granted, and engage in a conversation about what the future is likely to hold, without any need for pretence or

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denial.”12 For Kingsnorth, the End is here and all that is left of the human enterprise is coming to terms with that knowledge. Environmentalist promotion of such ideas has paid off in prompting mainstream American authors, writing outside of the science fiction genre, to join the scientific apocalyptic. Apocalyptic-­themed cultural trends have had a synergistic interaction, with greater cultural attention to premillennialism and a New Age prophecy of the End based on the Mayan calendar pushing the production of more apocalyptic media. This means Americans quickly leap to apocalyptic speculation during a perceived crisis, as in late 2014 when a handful of Ebola patients were brought to the United States for treatment. The attention Ebola received was a brief interlude in a period where distress over economics and environmental problems reigned. Plague is not a new threat, not even in its apocalyptic formulation. The Spanish Flu outbreak in the final year of World War I killed millions of people across the world, many more lives than even the war had taken. Americans blamed it on Germans or immigrants, but it illustrated the reality that easier means of travel, like air flight, could rapidly spread disease worldwide. Public memory of the Spanish Flu and Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Ebola Virus (1995) prepped Americans for an apocalyptic reaction to Ebola. The Washington Post, for instance, ran a tongue-­in-­cheek article about digging in and waiting out the End, while the governor of Louisiana got a court order to prevent the burned remains of an Ebola patient’s effects from being dumped at a landfill.13 With the apocalypse consuming so much media attention, American literary authors are no longer content with subtext or allegory and are writing about actual ends of the world. Cormac McCarthy, an American author known for wrestling with themes like the essence of evil and the presence of aggression in human nature, lifted the veil from a literary apocalypse in The Road (2006). While scientific apocalypticists have tended to spell out just how humans might meet their ­demise—​­in keeping with their roles as self-­appointed prophets—​­for McCarthy the means of destruction didn’t matter. What concerned him is human behavior in a postapocalyptic landscape where brute survival is the only goal.14 And in The Road, the upshot of biological subsistence is men doing their worst. Only an archetypal son and father—​­their names erased in their daily struggles—​­offer any hope beyond murder, cannibalism, and rape in the text. Love cannot even endure in this environment, as the mother gives up, abandoning both husband and son. The primitive genetic bond of father/son

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sustains long enough for the father to find a seemingly normal family to take in his son as they fight their way through the same malefic obstacles. The ending may have made The Road a bearable read, but it does not offer much hope. Stripped of civilization, there will be no millennium where a now-­ enlightened handful will build a better society. The “man” offers readers a glimpse at the face of meaninglessness: “Perhaps in the world’s destruction it would be possible at last to see how it was made. Oceans, mountains. The ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. The sweeping waste, hydropotic and coldly secular. The silence.”15 McCarthy is not the only mainstream author to take on the end of the world as literary device.16 Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers (2011) also focuses less on cause and more on how humans make their way in a changed world. Perrotta based his novel on the idea of a secular rapture without explanation, becoming an exploration of grief and existential meaning in the face of inexplicable loss. The conscious repurposing of dispensational premillennialism fails to provide any significant commentary on the relationship between secular and religious apocalypticizing. Perrotta’s work, however, illustrates the easy cultural familiarity with dispensationalist terminology and concepts in the present day, also seen in the obvious film parodies This Is the End (2013) and Rapture-­Palooza (2013). The Left Behind series, coupled with public discussion of the second Bush’s religious beliefs, helped dispensational premillennialism achieve greater prominence in American popular culture. When the evangelical Harold Camping predicted the Rapture would occur on 21 May 2011, with the final destruction of the world on 21 October, mainstream media like the New York Times, ABC News, and local newspapers reported Camping’s prediction, though they had ignored similar predictions in the past. His ministry also posted some 1,200 billboards around the United States, warning people to find salvation prior to the May date. Historically, most dispensationalists have avoided dating the apocalypse, given the auspicious failure of William Miller’s prognostications in the mid-­1800s. Setting a date was not a departure from Camping’s previous eschatology—​­in 1992 he had pinpointed 1994 as the year of the Rapture with little fanfare—​­but this prediction attracted mockery from David Letterman and on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Some followers of Camping who sold off possessions and quit their jobs responded angrily when the Rapture never happened, and vandals attacked Camping’s ministry’s radio station after the unsuccessful prediction.17 The other hot apocalyptic prediction of the new millennium was the

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Mayan prophecy of the world’s end in 2012. As early as 2009, Hollywood released the film 2012 based on the idea that the Mayans had prophesied the end of the world for 21 December 2012. The New Age movement had appropriated the date as heralding a spiritual new age for humanity. Mayan scholars debunked the theory—​­the Maya had believed in cycles of disaster and renewal and 21 December was just a red-­letter day in the cycle—​­but some Americans stocked up on survival gear and food just in case. In 2010, an American reality television show, Wife Swap, featured a family that had moved to a remote area in the West in preparation for a 2012 apocalypse. Though the family did not know exactly how the world would end, the titular wife captured the national mood when she argued that with so many end-­of-­ the-­world possibilities, “there’s no way nothing is going to happen.”18 Failed prophecies are not a new phenomenon, and sociologists as well as psychologists like Leon Festinger have addressed the surprising invigoration failed prophecies can bring to religious movements in works like When Prophecy Fails (1956). Though these two failed prophecies may have produced some disillusionment, the attention these predictions received revealed an American public eager to play-­act the apocalypse. What the New York Times has labeled the “apocalypse market” has generated success for a bevy of television and film studios and their employees as well as the publishing industry.19 Economic calculations are not the only driving force behind these productions, as many scientific apocalypticists continue to cast themselves as prophets. A fantasy/science-­fiction editor, Gordon van Gelder, in the introduction to a short-­story collection about global warming, Welcome to the Greenhouse (2011), explains that “the science behind these tales is all too real. (The true ‘science fiction’ of our time, peddled on talk radio and in the halls of Congress, is that global warming is a myth.)”20 To explode that myth, Gelder says, he invited authors to ruminate on the outcome of climate change.21 Some writers and editors are a bit more self-­reflective about the business of apocalyptic book publishing than in prior decades. In the short-­story collection Catastrophia (2010), the editor says, “Were he still alive to pontificate from his sofa, Sigmund Freud would probably say that Humankind’s obsession with catastrophe is some sort of sublimated death wish.”22 If it isn’t Thanatos at work, perhaps aggressive impulses are at play, as Paula Guran intimates in her introduction to After the End: Recent Apocalypses: “I used to pretend the world had ended and that I was the only one who survived. . . . ​I know your secret, you’ve fantasized about that too.”23 Though authors still do not

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openly address their financial interest in writing about the End, the acknowledgment of the entertainment aspects of their “prophecies” encourage readers to contemplate what inner needs such stories meet, an uncomfortable invitation that prior generations of writers avoided. However more self-­aware editors and authors are of the potential for escapism in apocalyptic speculation, they do not shun its use in the unending project to fathom existential threats. 9/11 led to fears of a nuclear attack, and classic nuclear apocalypses showed up on the small screen and in print. They were no less politicized than the movies of the 1980s, like The Day After. The first episode of an anthology television program called Masters of Science Fiction (2007) was a story about an American president, suffering memory loss after having started a nuclear war that left the Earth in ashes. Diagnosing him with Korsakoff syndrome, a psychiatrist forces the president to remember the decisions he made that led to only 871 humans surviving underground. Defending his preemptive war, the president admits to dismissing reports that a new weapon could trigger nearby fissionable material. “Progress is our birthright,” he intones, complaining, “one day it’s the greenhouse effect and the next we’re poisoning the oceans.” In response to his assertion that he was just protecting democracy, the psychiatrist says with bitterness, “Mission accomplished, Mr. President,” an allusion to Bush’s premature 2003 declaration during the Iraq War of “mission accomplished.”24 The physicist Stephen Hawking provides the opening and closing narration for the series, giving it a scientific credibility it might have lacked otherwise. The images of Earth embroiled in gray and black dust storms are a bit of a throwback to Cold War–­era fictions, but as a story that charged Americans in particular with destroying the world it was a striking deviation from prior nuclear fiction, which saw Americans as the helpless representatives of humanity’s foibles. Like scientists who have concluded that the End is already upon us, American science fiction grew more willing to kill off humanity deliberately. Robert Reed, a Nebraska author who had majored in biology, published the story “Pallbearer” in 2010 in which scientists murder the majority of the human population in order to save the Earth. Reed’s postapocalyptic America suffers from various disasters: the air is full of carbon dioxide, and drought curses the land. A plague, however, is what has decimated civilization. A woman proclaiming to have saved the world visits the town of Salvation, built by doomsday “preppers” who may have had forewarning of the End. The main character, Noah, figures out that the dementia-­fueled ravings of the

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self-­proclaimed savior of the world are about the cause of the plague; she and other scientists initiated a worldwide inoculation program as a Trojan horse that actually inflicted a highly virulent disease called the “Shakes.” One of her grandchildren explains, “If grandma and her friends hadn’t acted, our species would have eventually pushed the climate over the brink.”25 Noah denounces the elderly scientist for enacting her own personal judgment on the world, but he does nothing to prevent her and her family from heading north to join up with other surviving scientists. Despite the dropped hint that people were growing too greedy again and the scientists in hiding might engineer another disaster to save the planet from humankind, Noah’s inaction, compared to his namesake’s construction of an ark, indicates his acquiescence to the plan. Noah’s ark saved the only remaining righteous people in the world, but Reed’s story implies there are no such worthies left. Lacking from Reed’s story is a replacement species for humankind or an Elect created by the refining experience of calamity. Still, like the premillennialist eschaton, the scientific apocalypse has become a constant state of affairs. In the late 1990s, several television shows debuted with the weekly format of fighting the apocalypse. The agents who investigated The X-­Files (1993–­2002) uncovered plans for an alien-­led apocalypse, while in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–­2003) and its spinoff Angel (1999–­2004) the world was in perpetual danger of ending. Fringe (2008–­ 2013) is a show indebted to The X-­Files, but unlike its predecessor (and the other above-­named shows) it eschewed the supernatural in order to focus on the dangers of out-­of-­control science and technology. Fringe features an FBI agent who works with a nonfiguratively mad scientist and his genius son to investigate strange happenings. Fringe suggests that man alone is the world’s guardian and can either destroy or safeguard its charge. Science, at least in a pseudo-­version presented in the show, explains an increasing number of weird and horrifying events, caused by the unauthorized crowdsourcing of Dr. Walter Bishop’s research emanating from 1980s-­era reckless experiments. Bishop, who had a piece of his brain extracted to dampen his intelligence and remove parts of his memory, spends the series determined to make up for his past self ’s god complex. The first four seasons detail a battle between two universes; the second and slightly different one is called “over there.” Bishop accidentally created an opening between the two universes, causing destabilization and destruction to the counterpart universe, which begins a war between the two. The culmination of the first four seasons occurs when an old friend of Bishop’s, an even

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more deranged scientist named William Bell, tries to destroy this universe and create an entirely new one that he has designed and will control. The Fringe team defeat Bell, but not before he gives this speech: “You know, I was not planning on having any humans [in the new universe]. What a troublesome species we can be, after all. I’d assumed that Walter and I would die off, and my new universe would thrive unencumbered by the whims of mankind.”26 With Bell thwarted from his plan, Bishop and his family then prevent another apocalypse, this time from the future. Engineered humans from the twenty-­seventh century, having destroyed their environment, begin an invasion of the present, instituting a totalitarian regime with the end goal of transferring all of society from the 2600s to the past. The transhumans live a life of luxury on the backs of twenty-­first-­century unaltered humans until the latter steal time-­travel technology to foil the plot to end the world, again. Though the science is clumsy and the plotting somewhat chaotic, Fringe suggests that everything wrong in the world is explainable and preventable, but it also insinuates that if unseen forces seem to be at work, they are red herrings for our own darkness. There is no promise of a millennium, only the risk of indiscriminate destruction at any time—​­such is the power of humans in a godless cosmos. Other apocalyptic fictions resorted to resignation as the only option in the face of an inevitable end of the world. Ben H. Winters’s The Last Policeman trilogy (2012–­2014) centers on a forthcoming natural disaster and went where previous fictional meteor-­based catastrophes dared not go—​­the extinction of humanity. The work is about a former young police officer turned self-­appointed detective who forges on, despite Earth’s impending collision with an asteroid. The trilogy explores familiar themes: the meaning of life in the face of uncontrollable natural events, a tendency to imagine government conspiracies, and the liberation that a pending doomsday might provide. A witness in a criminal investigation remarks on the weighty issues surrounding the impending collision: “Aren’t we all depressed, Detective? Under the weight of all this unbearable immanence? Aren’t you depressed?”27 At the end of the trilogy, there is no deus ex machina, no American technological miracle, and no millennium to follow the obliteration of the Earth—​­all that immanence came to nothing.28 The same could be said for the humans in Battlestar Galactica (2004–­ 2009), an update of a 1970s series where distant cousins of humans fled killer robots that came from an alien planet bent on destruction. Their journey

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ended happily when they escaped the robots and found Earth, home to a thirteenth tribe of humans. The millennial update turned the alien killer robots into a human creation. The Cylons, as the humanoid robots are called, believe they are doing God’s work when they destroy humanity’s twelve worlds. The humans practice a religion resembling ancient Greek mythology and slowly convert to the Cylons’ monotheism over the course of the series as they become convinced of their own innate wickedness. The rebooted series was no empty flight of fancy. Episodes dealt with issues like the justification of terrorism, the effect of technology on human nature, and abortion rights in a society that required births to keep afloat. The last season was an extended meditation on despair as humans discover that nuclear war had destroyed “Earth.” The final episode ends with the humans finding our “Earth” where they abandon their technology and commingle their DNA with that of our ancient ancestors. Despite the revelation that God exists and had been jerking everyone’s strings throughout the series, the closing scene is of real people today using technology. The image imparts the same message as the mantra of the series—​­“all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.”29 Though technological threats have dominated apocalyptic fiction, after 9/11 apocalyptic writers in the United States focused on existential threats other than climate change and nuclear weapons.30 Whether man-­made or emanating from an indifferent universe, disaster loomed—​­the End would happen one way or another. Both sides of the Atlantic issued films and novels that combined supernatural horror and scientific apocalypse. A cultural fascination with vampires and the apocalyptic possibility of a pandemic helped to create The Passage and The Strain trilogies along with standalone novels like Colson Whitehead’s Zone One.31 A yearning to see the world turned upside down may have driven the popularity of I Am Legend’s 2007 film remake, with its scenes of corn growing in Central Park and a deserted Columbus Circle. Zombies meanwhile originally offered a commentary on consumerism and racism in Night of the Living Dead (1968), but in the British production of 28 Days Later (2002), quick-­as-­a-­wink zombies destroy the entire world, leaving only a few survivors for the film’s plot. The emphasis on never-­ending apocalypses proposes that we are already living in the end-­times. Perseverance during an unfolding apocalypse drives the plotlines of The Walking Dead, a 2010 television series developed out of a series of graphic novels and set in a world populated by zombies. A man-­ made virus has infected all humans with a zombie disease, which takes over

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the human body after death or a zombie bite. The show centers on a band of survivors who have slowly found each other over a number of years. Together the merry few fight the dead “walkers,” bad people, the elements, and inner demons to keep each other and their feelings of community alive. The main character, a former police officer named Rick Grimes, is good at killing things, but he is always at risk of losing his humanity in the process. Every season Grimes and his followers come close to building a safe home for themselves, only for other people to wreck it. The killing spree that follows usually leads to Grimes losing control; when he recovers, he insists to others, “you can come back,” meaning that you can give free rein to your inner killer without descending into permanent sociopathy. With the millennium repeatedly denied and attrition killing off the Elect, The Walking Dead does not pretend to offer viewers a framework for understanding death, either in its individual or collective forms. Instead, the show’s graphic violence taps into aggressive impulses—​­killing a loved one who has become a zombie is a rite of passage on the show—​­as well as narcissistic fantasies of playing a hero. In the post-­9/11 period, the American scientific apocalyptic has come closer in tone to the “last man” tradition in Britain, begun by Lord Byron and continued by Nevil Shute in On the Beach (1957) and Raymond Briggs in When the Wind Blows (1986). In prior periods, British apocalyptic media served as a counterpoint to American productions. But this is no longer the case. A recent British novel by a self-­described eco-­horror novelist illustrates how the last man tradition is still alive in England. Joseph D’Lacey envisioned multiple cataclysms as leading to doomsday in Black Feathers (2013). One character details the economic decline, extreme weather, violence, and starvation that has befallen what seems to be England (never named), insisting that the Earth is only protecting herself: “So there’s only one solution and that is to rid herself of a giant swathe of humanity. . . . ​Only those people who respect and look after her, who give back something for everything they take, only those people will have the smallest chance of surviving these times.”32 Gordon becomes the embodiment of “the Crowman,” a mysterious and spiritual figure who deals out revenge on behalf of the Earth. There is no utopia, only a struggle to survive as in The Walking Dead. The persistence of religious belief in the United States, especially the influence of conservative evangelicals, as opposed to the secularizing tendencies of Britain and Europe, has helped to account for the differences between Americans’ and other Westerners’ faith in technology and humanity throughout the twentieth century. Conservative evangelicals in the United States kept

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up an apocalyptic patter that influenced the way scientists and science popularizers approached technological threats. The ways in which American apocalypses so often mimicked premillennialist fantasies—​­depictions of a secularized original sin, a disaster that reveals that flaw but also cleanses, and a spared remnant to create a new world—​­are suggestive of the influence of dispensational premillennialism. The altered tone of the scientific apocalyptic after 9/11, however, is unlikely to be evidence of religion holding less sway over American culture. Scholars had developed the “secularization thesis” during the 1960s on the idea that modern Western societies had abandoned religious belief. The following decades refuted that theory as Americans remained as religious as ever and religion continued to matter greatly to the rest of the world. Scholars have come to see secularization in Europe as the exception, not the norm.33 That the existential threats Americans face are more numerous if not more severe has contributed to the darkening tint of Americans’ formerly rose-­ colored glasses. But more important is the sense of national declension shared between liberal and conservative Americans. Both declension and doomsday themes pervade current popular culture, an indication of how Americans see the world’s fate as inextricable from their own. Forecasts of China overtaking the United States as the world’s largest economy, a political impasse over climate change, and no end in sight to the War on Terror deepen the impression of national decline since the Great Recession. If Britons’ response to the end of empire was fear for the future, Americans seem no less certain that a world without American leadership is not a world worth living in. Most American apocalyptic books, short stories, films, and television shows are reluctant to surrender to meaninglessness in the face of the End. That resistance to nihilism continues to manifest in fictional scientific apocalyptic works largely through premillennialist signifiers. Technology less frequently saves humankind, but it does so rather spectacularly in the film Interstellar (2015).34 Premises recur: aliens and artificial intelligences still alternately save or judge humanity.35 The apocalypse can be a refining crisis from which a better sort of human emerges into the millennium.36 Or it could mean the freedom to live in a way respectful to nature. James Howard Kunstler said as much through his World Made by Hand books (2008–­2014). In these novels, which ostensibly are a dystopian series, characters that survive industrial collapse know how to live off the land and can make any required supplies by hand. Americans have tended to see the end of the United States as only

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possible with the end of the world. Rare has been the American-­penned novel or short story that shows the end of the United States alone. During the Cold War, conservative politicians deemed movies featuring the effects of nuclear weapons as dangerous to the cause of liberty, but after the Cold War that point seems to have been conceded. Instead, conservatives began warning of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), energy produced by detonating a powerful nuclear weapon in the atmosphere. An EMP would disable electronics, from modern car engines to televisions. Though an EMP had been a concern during the Cold War, conservative politicians and think tanks have since argued that the United States has grown lax in its preparedness for such threats. A conservative take on this came in a Montreat College history professor’s novel, One Second After (2009), based on Newt Gingrich’s post-­9/11 warning that an EMP could destroy American civilization. As in liberal novels of climate change or nuclear war, Gingrich’s introduction to William Forstchen’s novel presents it as a work of prophecy.37 Set in Forstchen’s own small town in North Carolina, the novel is about the travails of a military officer turned professor and his family in the wake of an EMP. The protagonist, John Matherson, denounces members of Congress for not preparing for the threat of an EMP and says, “God has turned his back on America, Satan has won, so anything goes.”38 The end of the novel sees the United States declared a nonentity with Matherson predicting that “things will continue to break down, collapsing in, and then it’s just the end.”39 But it is not the end of the world, merely the end of the United States, and the sonorous tone of Forstchen’s book is more along the lines of American conservative fears about changing values than apocalyptic works warning of climate change or nuclear war. When the destruction of the United States has appeared in secular fiction, such as in short stories by Stephen Benét or Ray Bradbury, it has served more as social commentary than a warning of impending disaster. One Second After’s emphasis, though rare in secular literature, joins Bible prophecy novels published since 9/11 in focusing on the literal end of the United States prior to the end of the world. After 9/11, dispensationalist premillennialism reoriented around the terrorist attacks as well as the role of Islam in the end-­times. Jerry Falwell said of the 9/11 attacks, “I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorists” but America’s “secular and anti-­Christian environment left us open to our Lord’s [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture . . . ​the result is not good.”40 For Bible prophecy proponents, 9/11 indicated the evil of Islam as well as God’s removal of

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protection from the United States for straying away from Christian values, evidenced in the continued legalization of abortion, the teaching of evolution, the increased flexibility of gender roles, and other contested cultural practices. Conservative evangelicals also characterized liberal criticism of Israel’s expansion of settlements into disputed areas, like the West Bank, as tempting God’s wrath. They maintained that the duty of the United States during the end-­times is to defend Israel as the homeland for God’s chosen people. Hal Lindsey in The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad (2002) warned that “Britain is a only shadow of its former glory” because it has not been as supportive of Israel as the United States.41 He suggested American support for an independent Palestinian state would similarly invite God to punish America by reducing its position in the world. The evangelical scholar Crawford Gribben has commented on the loss of status suffered by the United States in Rapture fiction. Gribben says that in early 2000s prophetic novels such as Jerry B. Jenkins’s Soon (2003), “America has been stripped of its prophetic significance at the same time as it has lost its moral authority as the counterweight to atheistic communism. . . . ​In stark contrast to the uncomplicated patriotism of a great deal of American dispensational writing, America itself was now being identified as evangelicalism’s eschatological ‘other.’ ”42 And yet, during the immediate post–­Cold War period of the 1990s, the United States still seemed poised to play a positive role during the end of days, as conservatives viewed America as having “won” the Cold War under the leadership of Reagan. The shock of 9/11 affected the religious apocalyptic as much as it did the scientific apocalyptic and is partially responsible for its darker portrait of the United States. Though most, like Lindsey, supported military action in the Middle East, Bible prophecy commentators thought and even hoped those wars might spark the prophetic sequence of events beginning with the Rapture. In 2003, I attended the Metro Heights Baptist Church’s “Tribulation Trail” in Stockbridge, Georgia, an alternative Halloween house that presented the events of a literal interpretation of Revelation. The play portrayed the war in Iraq as leading to the battle of Armageddon. In another scene at “Tribulation Trail,” those who are left behind blame terrorists for the Rapture. When the Rapture didn’t happen, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq prompted speculation that the Antichrist might in fact be a Muslim. The

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evangelical writer Joel Richardson, in The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Real Nature of the Beast (2009), contended that “we have seen from the Islamic traditions and Muslim scholars, the Mahdi, like the Antichrist, is also prophesied to be a political and military world leader unparalleled by any other throughout world history.”43 Richardson did not quibble over the differences between Sunni and Shi’ite apocalyptic beliefs regarding the Mahdi; for Richardson, Satan may have controlled Muhammad himself, and any prophecy emanating from Muhammad could reveal Satan’s strategy for the end of days.44 The authority of Islam in this matter is the authority of Lucifer, not Muhammad.45 After the Great Recession and Obama’s election in 2008, more conservative evangelicals agreed that God had given up on the United States. A surprise Christian hit in 2011 was The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future by Jonathan Cahn. It spent one hundred weeks on the New York Times best-­seller list. Cahn, a Messianic Jew with a ministry in New Jersey, told a fictional story in which a mysterious figure explains that what is happening in relation to the attacks on 9/11 is a carbon copy of the judgment passed on Israel in Isaiah 9:10. As an example of how 9/11 and Isaiah 9:10 resemble one another, the characters discuss how New York replaced a sycamore tree at the Twin Towers that was destroyed in the attacks with a coniferous tree; according to the novel’s narrative, this corresponds to the Assyrian destruction of a sycamore tree, which the Hebrews replace with an erez, or coniferous tree, despite God’s injunction not to do so.46 Further punishment follows. Such incidents’ correspondence to the judgment in Isaiah, according to Cahn, symbolizes American arrogance in the wake of 9/11 and the failure to recognize that 9/11 and the Great Recession are judgments from God. Cahn followed up his successful novel with another, The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-­Year-­Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future, and Your Future! (2014). Cahn cautioned in his earlier novel that 9/11 was merely the first portent of a forthcoming day of reckoning for the United States. Just as God warned and punished Judah and Israel, so would he follow up his warnings to Americans with a literal judgment. The Mystery of the Shemitah asserts that America is turning away from Christianity, and just as “in the fall of ancient Israel the nation decided it could rewrite morality and change what was good and evil, sin and ­righteousness—​­so too in America.”47 And if that happens, “its place as the

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head of nations will fall and the American age and global order will be allowed to collapse.”48 Cahn’s novels proposed an explanation of 9/11 that Americans ached for. Formulating conspiracy theories are one way some Americans have dealt with the first major attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. The attraction of seeing 9/11 as the work of American conspirators is that it provides the illusion of control. If an American cabal engineered the attacks, then all Americans need to do in response is to root out the bad seeds in the government. Otherwise, an analysis of the problem of terrorism leads to recognition that the United States may have helped stoke this level of rage via its actions in the Middle East, through, for instance, the prolonged occupation of Saudi Arabian military bases after the Persian Gulf War. Cahn offered another attractive, less complex interpretation: it only happened because God let it, and if we return to practicing Christian values, it won’t happen again. For those who had little hope that—​­in their perception—​­the United States would return to its mythical Christian roots, the idea of Americans deserving judgment prompted predictions of disastrous wars befalling the world, even before the arrival of the Antichrist. The implication is that the United States now lacks the power to prevent such happenings. Jenkins’s Soon has a scenario along those lines, as Gribben notes in Writing the Rapture.49 So does a new series of novels by Tim LaHaye with a new writing partner in Craig Parshall, a Christian fiction writer. In the second book of the series Thunder of Heaven (2011), terrorists set off a nuclear bomb in New Jersey, while Iran fires three nuclear missiles at Israel. While a defensive missile system deflects the latter, one of the three are successfully “returned to sender” and hits Bushehr in Iran (though it had been evacuated).50 The idea of nuclear attacks leading up to the Rapture was not only new, but also a shift in how LaHaye had imagined the end-­times in the past. LaHaye and Jenkins’s Left Behind books had eschewed nuclear and environmental interpretations in general. In a 2006 work of Bible prophecy, Exploring Bible Prophecy from Genesis to Revelation: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage, edited by LaHaye and Ed Hindson, not all events designated to happen during the Tribulation are purely supernatural any longer. For example, the book labels the second “bowl of wrath” a “worldwide ecological disaster,” while it describes the fourth bowl of wrath as causing a solar flare bathing the planet in radiation.51 There is still an avoidance of nuclear war in Exploring Bible Prophecy. Though prophecy writers have interpreted 2 Peter as

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indicating a nuclear conflict, the text says that this refers to the final end of the universe when “the smallest particles, the elements, will cease to be.”52 These changes may also be due to the participation of other writers in this text, but it intimates that LaHaye himself has changed how he views the future of the United States. Even before the Antichrist takes power in LaHaye and Parshall’s new end-­of-­days books, a female vice president of the United States undermines and then poisons a born-­again male president in order to assume power. That development expresses a particular discomfort with the increased visibility of women in American politics, seen as a sign of declining family values. Men still relegate women to inferior statuses within conservative evangelicalism, with women’s proper concerns being seen as those of the home and family. Bill Salus, who speaks and writes on Bible prophecy, testifies to the importance of his work Nuclear Showdown in Iran: Revealing the Ancient Prophecy of Elam (2014) by insisting at the end of the introduction, “As you can tell by now, this is not a bestselling woman’s devotional book.”53 Despite such discouragements, women have also become more visible within conservative evangelicalism, and at least two women have published their own Bible prophecy fiction since the turn of the twenty-­first century. So Close (2010) by Paulette Kincaid, a Texas evangelical, and Millennium Gone: A Novel (2014) by Stephanie Krenning, a Christian author from Washington, do not offer any new interpretations, but their works include a female perspective. So Close’s narrator is a preacher’s wife, left behind when the Rapture comes. Krenning’s novel concentrates on the end of the millennium, when God unleashes Satan once again to tempt the people born since Christ established his kingdom on Earth. Though Krenning’s female characters are or aspire to be wives and mothers, they also willingly martyr themselves to protect others from Satanic influence. Millennium Gone’s women are not simple stereotypes of the good Christian woman. The leader of the pro-­Satan forces is also a woman, Durdana, who arranges the murder of her father in order to seize power. Despite more women participating in the creation of Bible prophecy interpretations, they don’t mount any significant challenges to conservative evangelical beliefs. Obama’s election in 2008 unsettled conservative evangelicals more so than women leaning in, with one end-­times novel featuring a barely disguised Obama-­like president doing the bidding of Satan. President Joshua Kayin is one such figure in The Coming (2007) by Paul Bortolazzo, an Assembly of God pastor from Alabama. Kayin is a name of West African derivation, though the narrative never identifies President Kayin as African

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American in the novel. A character explains Kayin’s destiny as the Antichrist: “Satan will eventually give his power to American President, Joshua Kayin. For those who overcome the accuser of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, they shall call Kayin the Abomination of Desolation.”54 In the 2011 update of Lindsey’s Roots of Jihad, he claims that Obama is a secret Muslim who is plotting against Israel in favor of the Palestinians.55 These avowals are consistent with conservative political criticism of Obama, but it may be that the election of a liberal, black president helped curb the brash patriotism of earlier Bible prophecy, primarily written and published by conservative, white evangelical ministers. These portrayals of Obama also attest to the endurance of the divide between black and white evangelicals. For white evangelicals, those who support affirmative action, multiculturalism, and the Black Lives Matter movement have destroyed America’s Christian identity. For black evangelicals, the same issues are in the realm of attainable social justice, and a return to an American past does not promise a better future. The increasing political divide that predated the economic downturn and continued to drive politics afterward suggested to some that America’s direct absence from the Bible is for a good reason. David Jeremiah, an evangelical pastor in California, writes in The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns About the New Global Economy (2010), “What if this once-­great nation, because of its inability to repay its trillions of dollars of indebtedness, is so weakened as to be absorbed into the new world order and its global economy, thus losing its sovereignty and separate identity?”56 Political compromise, regardless of the consequences, is less desirable than standing up for Christ, since the United States is prophetically destined to decline or even disappear. The Internet and the availability of self-­publishing tools have placed debates over the particulars of dispensationalism in the public eye. As Amy Frykholm argues in Rapture Culture, readers of books like Left Behind actively engage the work’s themes and arguments; so have readers of other Bible prophecy works. In particular, Pentecostal and charismatic authors have taken on the pre-­Tribulationist view of the Rapture as represented in Left Behind. Historically, the older evangelical sects have dominated dispensational literature, but the growth of Pentecostalism in the Internet age has led to a number of books that situate dispensationalism in a charismatic context. Their debate over the timing over the Rapture is not a minor one; those who

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argue that the Rapture may be mid-­Tribulationist or pre-­Wrath (when the seventh seal is opened) as well as post-­Tribulationist (at the end of the seven-­ year reign of the Antichrist) see eternal consequences for followers of preachers like LaHaye. Nondenominational charismatic and Pentecostal Christians often promote these alternative views of the scheduling of the Rapture, and the growth of these churches among Mexican Americans as well as in Latin America may be fueling the acceptance of alternative theories about the Rapture. Bortolazzo’s trilogy, The Coming, warned its readers of the folly of a pre-­ Tribulationist perspective. After the Rapture occurs in the first novel, one pastor admits to his church that his teaching that the Rapture would precede the appearance of the Antichrist means that they have unwittingly taken the number of the beast. The reaction is rage at the minister: “You stinking liar; now we’re all doomed to the lake of fire.”57 The nondenominational pastor John Jacobsen’s self-­published The Beginning of the End (2009) explained the purpose of this false belief: “I personally think that the so-­called pre-­Trib rapture is a terrible mistake foisted upon us by the devil so that the Church won’t rise up to do its job, content to remain apathetic and complacent, simply awaiting our trip home to heaven.”58 The Calvinism of most prominent dispensationalists is what Pentecostals find objectionable about the pre-­Tribulationist Rapture. In LaHaye and Jenkins’s novels, people can accept Christ after the Rapture, and, once saved, even taking the mark of the beast can’t deprive a believer of his or her salvation. Without a corresponding emphasis on predestination, that position risks becoming antinomian. For believers in the Wesleyan traditions, salvation is always at stake, which keeps believers anxious and faithful in the absence of predestination.59 Pre-­Tribulationists have responded to detractors but without the same passion that infuses books like The Coming. The authors of Exploring Bible Prophecy gave a nod to various interpretations of God’s judgments. The commentary made decisive statements on some points of contention, as in the identity of Rosh as Russia, but took pains to accommodate differences of opinion: “there is no reason to relegate the invasion to a mid-­or posttribulational when the present pretribulational setting already meets these conditions. Even so, the invasion [of Israel] probably will not take place until after the Rapture of the Church.”60 Chuck Missler also offered a mild defense of the pre-­Tribulationist position in The Rapture: Christianity’s Most Preposterous Belief (2014). He wrote that the Rapture is not a recent invention, and John

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Nelson Darby was only responsible for disseminating it.61 For Missler, mid-­ Tribulationist and post-­Tribulationist viewpoints are doctrinal errors that deny Darby’s insight that the Church and Israel had separate destinies, spelled out in prophetic books like Revelation. Pre-­Tribulationists like Missler, LaHaye, and Lindsey didn’t find that a belief in a belated timing of the Rapture endangers one’s salvation, and the prose about those doctrinal differences is calm and unhurried. Obama may be a secret Muslim in Lindsey’s view, but pre-­Tribs did not have to worry about Obama being the Antichrist—​­if he was, they’d be Raptured before he did his worst. Whether or not mid-­Tribulationist and post-­Tribulationist views are growing in popularity, they are growing in visibility, as more proponents of such views publish books that elucidate that viewpoint. While pre-­Tribs have been more politically active, the logic of a pre-­Wrath or mid-­Tribulationist perspective may lead to greater political participation by those fearing that the Antichrist might already be at work in the United States and the wider world. Such beliefs could inject more urgency and rigidity into the culture wars as well as into foreign policy debates. These disruptions in the world of Bible prophecy do not mean that all traditions have been broken. The endeavor to modernize Bible prophecy through science is still a focus of other dispensationalists. The renewed concern over nuclear devastation after 9/11 is evident in Jack Kelley’s 7 Things You Have to Know to Understand End Times Prophecy (2011). Kelley reports that Ezekiel’s description of a war with Magog, which he identifies as Russia plus either Europe or the United States, refers to a nuclear conflict. The prophecy is that Israel will be victorious as God disarms the missiles, and Israel receives enough nuclear fuel from those missiles to power the land for seven years.62 In Kelley’s view, Ezekiel 39:11–­16 deliberately uses language that would be intelligible to moderns, such as men “cleansing the land.” Kelley translates this biblical passage for his readers: “After that they’ll hire professionals, some to decontaminate the land and some to search for any bodies the people may have missed. . . . ​This approach fits modern Nuclear Biological Chemical Warfare decontamination procedures to a tee.”63 Steve Ashburn, a chemist and self-­taught Bible prophecy writer, also uses science to justify his prediction of a catastrophic war prior to the Rapture. He also relies on Ezekiel for his description of a nuclear war, which he argues will happen thirty-­three years prior to the seven-­year Tribulation period. Ezekiel 29, according to Ashburn, “describes what can only be a nuclear attack.”64 The particulars of later passages in the same biblical book, he explains, refer to

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the nuclear destruction of the Aswan Dam, spilling radioactive water into the region. Israel is behind this attack, after an attempted invasion by Egypt, in Ashburn’s account. When other nations come to Egypt’s aid, the result will be the destruction of Egypt; its allies of Libya, Ethiopia, Sudan; all Arabs; and enemies within Israel itself. Ashburn emphasizes that this war will occur prior to the Rapture but says it is not the only war in the Middle East predicted prior to the Rapture.65 Ashburn’s opinion is that Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50–­51 place a third war with Iraq at the same time as Israel’s war with Egypt; the United States, allied with Iran, will attack Iraq for its participation in the attempted invasion of Israel. Though the land will remain productive, the Iraqi people themselves will suffer complete obliteration. The description of what happens to Babylon can’t be nuclear, Ashburn contends, because the land will be spared, so Ashburn theorizes that Israel will use neutron bombs to kill the people with radiation but spare the infrastructure of Iraq itself. Ashburn imagines an ecological disaster befalling Babylon at the same time as the war by combining Revelation 16 with Jeremiah 51:42: “The Bible also speaks of Babylon sinking beneath the ocean and being covered with waves, never to be seen again. . . . ​We know from Revelation 16 that God will greatly increase the sun’s solar output during the tribulation, resulting in great heat. . . . ​[T]his heat—​­and the cancellation of atmospheric circulation during the t­ribulation—​­will result in the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, which would raise the world’s sea level by about 200 feet, covering the site of the ancient city of Babylon.”66 Ashburn’s lengthening of the end-­times period is an original invention, allowing for pre-­Tribulationist Christians to anticipate more wars and the decline of the United States even before they are Raptured. Salus in Nuclear Showdown in Iran also asserts that some catastrophic wars may happen before the Rapture, such as in Jeremiah 49 (an attack on Iran’s nuclear program), Ezekiel 38 (a Russian-­led invasion of Israel), and Psalm 83 (where Egypt, Jordan, and Syria unsuccessfully attack Israel).67 All of these scenarios relegate the United States to a minor or inconsequential role, in keeping with the notion that God is done with the United States. As with the predictions of nuclear war, some authors have continued to invoke environmental disaster, either manufactured or real, in their descriptions of the world’s last days. Science continues to grant credibility to Bible prophecy, but, to avoid supporting the environmentalist movement, Ed Hindson relegates eco-­disasters to the seven-­year reign of the Antichrist. Hindson, who teaches at Liberty University and has his own television show,

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argues that, during the Tribulation, “great ecological disasters will bring the planet to the brink of extinction. The description of the final hour of the tribulation includes atmospheric darkness, air pollution, ecological disasters, and cataclysmic events.”68 But, Hindson notes, these ecological disasters are neither natural nor God-­generated; they are the by-­product of a wide-­scale nuclear war as described in 2 Peter. LaHaye and Parshall include an environmentalist conspiracy in their fictional series. One volcanologist, Bob Hamilton, stands alone against those who insist that global warming is a result of carbon emissions; Hamilton’s theory in the novel is that global temperatures are rising because of volcanic activity but will soon be decreasing.69 Hamilton, working on his own from scientific data and principles, had come to a truth that everyone else either missed or ignored for their own profit, in the same manner that creationist scientists find the truth when investigating the origins of humanity. Establishment scientists ignore Hamilton, just as Christians in the novel are sidelined or unheeded. Eventually, the Antichrist seizes on the climate change debate as a way to unite the world around his agenda. As in previous periods, the older paradigm of science that celebrated a lone investigator fueled new interpretations of prophetic biblical passages. As Missler defended pre-­Tribulationism, he also took pains to describe how the Rapture could happen, from a scientific perspective: “Many people are bewildered by the technology and even the metaphysics of how the Rapture could occur. . . . ​In our human desire to understand, we might be indebted to Michael Crichton. . . . ​He wrote the now-­classic novel, Jurassic Park, in which certain prehistoric creatures were recreated from nothing more than the information contained in DNA samples. . . . ​His imaginary science is only relevant to the fact that God only needs a tiny bit of information to resurrect us.”70 John Hagee, a charismatic evangelist with a large media empire, offered new interpretations of biblical passages based on his personal scientific inquiries. He wrote that Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change (2013) owed its existence to a profitable visit to the NASA website: “I went to the NASA site and suddenly, there it was! It leaped off the screen, and I gasped with excitement. The sun, moon, and stars are unmistakably connected to Israel and biblical prophecy.”71 According to Hagee, four lunar eclipses in 2014 and 2015 were a quartet of “blood moons” that has only occurred in relation to the history of the Jews three other times. Combined with 2015 being a Shemitah year, Hagee says the fourth blood moon will be the timing of another

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warning by God to the United States or even a judgment: “Will a crisis happen as before [in other Shemitah years like 2001]? What earthshaking event will it be? This we know: things are about to change forever!”72 Drawing on Cahn’s idea of the Shemitah years as related to America’s destiny, Hagee’s own understanding of science allowed him to develop an interpretation others had not seen. Ongoing creationist research also encourages new biblical interpretations based on the evangelical idea of science. Jeff Kinley, whose As It Was in the Days of Noah (2014) compared the present with society during Noah’s lifetime, tendered a new understanding of the world’s meteorological history: prior to the forty days and nights of rain that destroyed Noah’s world, it had never rained before. God sent nourishing mists throughout the Earth to water plants and replenish freshwater supplies. Moreover, on Kinley’s reading, the atmosphere contained a “canopy” of water, which “effectively filtered out the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays, also accounting for man’s extended life span before the Flood.”73 Kinley used his scientific reading of Genesis to argue that what happened during the Flood was “no natural disaster brought on by weather formations, ecological imbalances, or climate change. No, this was wrath-­of-­God stuff, and they knew it.”74 Similarly, the fire that God uses to punish the world on doomsday won’t be a natural disaster: “Forget about global warming. Enter global burning!”75 Scientific training, in Kinley’s view, could even bolster interpretations of supernatural events in the Bible. Kinley, who trained at Dallas Theological Seminary, illustrates how prophetic revisions find credibility through the combination of personal biblical exegesis and scientific plausibility. Joined with conspiracy theories from the secular world, that combination has produced complicated narratives of secret, global plots to introduce the Antichrist. Thomas Horn, a prolific evangelical writer, has argued variously that UFOs will prepare the way for the Antichrist, who may be seen as an “intergalactic wise man.”76 In a later book cowritten with Cris Putnam, a self-­identified “Christian apologist,” old-­ school theories about the Vatican’s involvement with the Antichrist merged with references to transhumanism, world population statistics, Apache creation myths, astronomical data, and the Planck Limit to create a more complex version of the argument that the Antichrist will be appear to be an extraterrestrial with ties to the Catholic Church.77 The mainstream evangelical community does not accept Horn’s beliefs, but his self-­published novels (available through Internet outlets like Amazon) demonstrate how easily nonprofessionals can now participate in the

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elucidation of Bible prophecy. Readers searching for answers about the Bible’s message regarding the End likely don’t quibble too much over the differences between the biblical exposition of a professional theologian versus one from an enthusiastic layman as long as it meshes with their own understanding of how the world works. Though theologians may find analyses like Horn’s lacking in rigor, his belief that secular sources, including the news, popular trends, scientific and sociological data, and even the beliefs of subcultures, can shed new light on the Bible is within the spirit of dispensationalism’s historical flexibility and approachability. In addition to self-­publishing, prophecy fans can trade thoughts on websites like Rapture Ready and Prophecy News Watch and thereby create multiple, crowdsourced Bible prophecies, which may not only undermine the consistency dispensationalism has shown since its adoption by Dwight Moody but may also infuse Bible prophecy with new life.78 The Internet itself may be breaking down moral distinctions between nationalistic governments, distinctions Americans have been making since the colonial period. The United States has given birth to the technology that will likely finish off an already shaky concept of American exceptionalism. The hacker group Anonymous transcends national borders and maybe even national loyalties, and a crowd-­produced sense of what’s right and what’s wrong, rather than any identifiable national agenda, seems to guide them to their targets. The ability to create an online community comprising people from across the world with similar worldviews accompanies the loss of faith in the United States that both liberals and conservatives evince. With religious and scientific apocalyptics converging on the idea of the United States in decline, the twenty-­first-­century national obsession with apocalypticism is as revelatory of American turmoil over its national identity as it is of American beliefs in science, technology, and religion. Americans drew strict boundaries around those categories when creating the modern institutions of society and set the stage for conflict between those sources of authority. As Americans stopped agreeing on the benevolence of those categories, the discord opened a cultural divide. Before Americans retreat from political participation into individually tailored end-­times fantasies, they should acknowledge the enduring similarities between the two supposedly antithetical worldviews that nourish these visions of the future.

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Notes

Preface 1. Sam Harris, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 138. Harris, an atheist, argues that Muslim terrorists are evidence of Islam’s illiberal and intolerant core. Representative of the more prevalent liberal view that democratization is possible in Islamic countries is John L. Esposito et al., Islam and Democracy After the Arab Spring (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), which rejects the use of secularization theory in understanding the political development of Muslim nations. 2. Rory Cellan-­Jones, “Stephen Hawking Warns Artifical Intelligence Could End Mankind,” BBC News, 2 December 2014, accessed 3 November 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news /technology-­30290540. 3. Note that Draper targeted Roman Catholicism as being oppressive toward science. 4. Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014); Ronald L. Numbers, “Science and Religion,” Osiris 1, 2d series (1985): 80; David C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers, “Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science,” Church History 55 (1986): 354. See also Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (Brooklyn, NY: Zone, 2007); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-­Century Evangelicalism 1870–­1925, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 212. 5. Stephen Jay Gould, Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life (New York: Ballantine, 1999), 4. 6. James Gilbert, Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 239. 7. Ibid., 238. 8. Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Science of Good and Evil (New York: Henry Holt, 2006), 161. 9. On how white Northerners embraced the South’s portrayal of the war and Reconstruction with its attendant racism, see, for instance, Robert M. Myers, “ ‘It’s What People Say We’re Fighting For’: Representing the Lost Cause in Cold Mountain,” in Why We Fought: America’s Wars in Film and History (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008), 122.

196 Notes to Pages 1–4

Chapter 1 1. On the idea that societies “need” creation stories, see, for instance, Karl Giberson and Donald A. Yerxa, Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation Story (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 1; and Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3–­4. 2. In mid-­eighteenth-­century Europe, Enlightenment philosophers like Baron d’Holbach, Pierre Louis Maupertuis, and Denis Diderot looked for a way to explain how life was created without reference to a Creator. See Peter J. Bowler, Evolution: The History of an Idea, 3d ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 81–­84, for a discussion of the theories including evolution that these thinkers proposed for the origins of life. 3. Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), Kindle, loc. 3038. 4. Jacques Barzun, Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 30. 5. Chunglin Kwa, Styles of Knowing: A New History of Science from Ancient Times to the Present, trans. David McKay (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), 223. Chunglin Kwa discusses the idea that Darwin delayed for religious reasons. For iterations of that explanation, see Barzun, 27–­28; Edward J. Larson, Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory (New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2004), 71. 6. Robert J. Richards, “Myth 11: That Darwin Worked on His Theory . . . ,” in Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 88–­95. 7. James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation” (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), Kindle, loc. 8556; Kostas Kampourakis, Understanding Evolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 115–­116; Oliver Rieppel, Evolutionary Theory and the Creation Controversy (New York: Springer, 2011), 29. 8. Secord, loc. 395, 5440. 9. Baron d’Holbach, The System of Nature, vol. 1, trans. H. D. Robinson (New York: G. W. and A. J. Matsell, 1835). See also Mark Curran, Atheism, Religion and Enlightenment in Pre-­ Revolutionary Europe (Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2012), 35. 10. Rieppel, 29; Secord, loc. 7580–­8867. 11. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 2 (London: John Murray, 1832), 62–­64, accessed 15 June 2016, Google Books. 12. Stephen Toulmin and June Goodfield, The Discovery of Time (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 191. 13. Bernard Lightman, Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 242; Sherrie Lynne Lyons, Species, Serpents, Spirits and Skulls: Science at the Margins in the Victorian Age (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), 166. 14. Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, vol. 3 (London: John Murray, 1833), 384, accessed online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A505.3 15 June 2016, http://darwin-­ &pageseq=1. 15. William Thomson, “On the Dynamical Theory of Heat,” in Mathematical and Physical Papers, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1882), 174–­316, accessed 27 June 2016,

Notes to Pages 4–6

197

Google Books; “On a Universal Tendency in Nature to the Dissipation of Mechanical Energy,” Philosophical Magazine 4, no. 25 (October 1852): 304–­306. See also Mike Sandbothe, The Temporalization of Time: Basic Tendencies in Modern Debate on Time in Philosophy and Science, trans. Andrew Inkpin (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 28–­29. 16. Quoted in Erwin N. Hiebert, “The Uses and Abuses of Thermodynamics in Religion,” Daedalus 95 (Fall 1966): 1051. 17. Helge S. Kragh, “Cosmology and the Entropic Creation Argument,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 37, no. 2 (March 2007): 372–­373. 18. Joe D. Burchfield, Lord Kelvin and the Age of the Earth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), 32; Crosbie Smith and M. Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 531–­538. 19. Steven G. Brush, Making 20th-­Century Science: How Theories Became Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 10377; Burchfield, 86; David Roger Oldroyd, Thinking About the Earth: A History of Ideas in Geology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 142–­143. 20. On scientists who refer to evolution as an equivalent “creation myth,” see P. Harrison, loc. 3296. 21. Sharon Kingsland, “Evolution and Debates over Human Progress from Darwin to Sociobiology,” Population and Development Review 14, Supplement: Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions (1988): 167–­168, 173–­174. 22. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, facsimile of the first ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), Kindle, loc. 3189. 23. Ibid., loc. 6854. 24. One of the other primary stumbling blocks was a general resistance to the idea that change could be the natural order of things. What Ernst Mayr refers to as “essentialism” and Edward Larson describes as “German idealism” was the belief that each species had its own archetype; evolution invariably led to this ideal form. Mayr traces this idea to Plato, whose idealism, he suggests, dominated Western thinking until the nineteenth century. See Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 45–­47; Larson, Evolution, 111. 25. Brush, 363; Peter J. Bowler, The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-­Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900, 3d ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 28; Larson, Evolution, 125. 26. Larson, Evolution, 107; Ronald L. Numbers, Darwinism Comes to America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); David J. Depew, “That Neo-­Darwinism Defines Evolution . . . ,” in Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 164–­170. 27. Richard W. Burkhardt Jr., “That Lamarckian Evolution Relied Largely on Use and Disuse and That Darwin Rejected Lamarckian Mechanisms,” in Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 80. 28. Brush, 81; Larson, Evolution, 39–­41. 29. Ernst Mayr, “Prologue: Some Thoughts on the History of the Evolutionary Synthesis,” in The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, ed. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 5. See also Larson, Evolution, 126–­127.

198 Notes to Pages 6–10

30. Sheridan Gilley and Ann Loades, “Thomas Henry Huxley: The War Between Science and Religion,” Journal of Religion 61, no. 3 (July 1981): 302; Kingsland, 174. 31. Gilley and Loades, 302. See Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (White Cat Classics, 2016), Kindle, loc. 3641, 10654, 11504; Darwin, Origin, loc. 1265, 3163. 32. William Jennings Bryan, The Menace of Darwinism (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1922), 41–­42. 33. Ibid., 45–­46. 34. Ibid., 63. 35. Ibid., 63–­64. 36. Larson, Evolution, 126. 37. Ernst Mayr, “The Ideological Resistance to Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 135, no. 2 (June 1991): 124. 38. Mayr, Growth, 536. Julian Huxley coined the term “evolutionary synthesis” in 1942. See also Mayr, “Prologue,” 1. 39. Julian Huxley, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1942), 571. 40. W. Warren Wagar, Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982). 41. Barkun, 274. 42. Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 18–­21. 43. Chris H. Lewis, “Science, Progress, and the End of the Modern World,” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 75, nos. 2–­3 (Summer/Fall 1992): 322. 44. Ibid., 309. 45. Ibid., 316–­317. 46. I. F. Clarke, preface to Jean-­Baptiste François Xavier Cousin de Grainville, The Last Man, trans. I. F. and M. Clarke (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002), xi–­xiv, xvii. The publisher evidently meant to imply that the anonymous writer of The Last Man; or, Omeragus and Syderia: A Romance in Futurity was British; the title page included a quote from Joseph Addison’s Cato, a popular English play from the early eighteenth century, and the translated text published in 1806 left out an extended celebration of Napoleon I (an obvious nod to British nationalism in consideration of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars). But despite the deception, scholars of this literary period argue that de Grainville’s work had little impact on English conceptions of “the last man.” 47. Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet, wrote a poem titled “The Last Man” in 1823, preserving biblical elements in his work as well. See Thomas Campbell, The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell (New York: S. and D. A. Forbes, 1830), lines 8–­10; lines 60–­69, p. 167. 48. Fabienne Moore, Prose Poems of the French Enlightenment (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 207. 49. Vijay Mishra, The Gothic Sublime (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). 50. Morton D. Paley, Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 201–­202. 51. Ibid., 198. 52. Lord Byron, Selected Poetry, ed. Jerome J. McGann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), lines 69–­74, p. 73.

Notes to Pages 10–16

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53. Paley, 202. 54. Byron, line 42, p. 73; Rev. 9:6 (KJV). 55. Mary Shelley, The Last Man, ed. Hugh J. Luke Jr. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), 339. 56. Ibid., 1–­4. 57. James Goho, “The Shape of Darkness: Origins for H. P. Lovecraft Within the American Gothic Tradition,” in Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors, ed. Robert H. Waugh (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2013), 31. 58. Ernest R. Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–­1930 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978), 37. 59. Richard Wilkinson, For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby (Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2007), 71–­84. 60. Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–­1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 25. 61. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870–­1925, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 48–­55; Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 86–­90. 62. Progressive dispensationalism is an alternative viewpoint that rejects the notion that the Church and Israel have separate destinies, but it is premature to guess how influential this viewpoint is or what effect it will have in the long run on premillennialism. See, for example, Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Bridgepoint, 2012). 63. David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (New York: Routledge, 1989), Kindle, loc. 2151. 64. Joseph M. Canfield, The Incredible Scofield and His Book (Vallecito, CA: Ross House, 1988), 74. 65. Ibid., xix. 66. Brendan Pietsch, Dispensational Modernism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 67. 67. Daniel Patrick Thurs, Science Talk: Changing Notions of Science in American Popular Culture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 54–­55, 62–­63. 68. P. Harrison, loc. 119, 158–­159. 69. Ibid., loc. 174. 70. Christopher P. Toumey, “Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority,” Social Studies of Science 21, no. 4 (November 1991): 688; Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 34. 71. Clark H. Pinnock, “New Dimensions in Theological Method,” in New Dimensions in Evangelical Thought: Essays in Honor of Millard J. Erickson, ed. David S. Dockery (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1998), 199. 72. Ibid., 205. 73. Weber, 32. 74. Ibid., 32–­33. 75. Marsden, Fundamentalism, 54. 76. Bebbington, loc. 3807. 77. George Marsden, “Fundamentalism as an American Phenomenon: A Comparison with English Evangelicals,” Church History 46 (1977): 218.

200 Notes to Pages 17–21

78. R. Laurence Moore, Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 79. Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 188. Chapter 2 1. David E. Nye, “Critics of Technology,” in A Companion to American Technology, ed. Carroll Pursell (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 429–­452. See also Eric Schatzberg, “Technik Comes to America: Changing Meanings of Technology Before 1930,” Technology and Culture 47, no. 3 (July 2006): 486–­512. 2. Scope and Plan of the School of Industrial Science of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1864), 3. 3. Ben Wright and Zachary W. Dresser, “Introduction,” in Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era, ed. Ben Wright and Zachary Dresser (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 1–­12. 4. Scott Nesbit, “Sharecropper’s Millennium: Land and the Perils of Forgiveness in Post–­ Civil War South Carolina,” in Apocalypse and the Millennium in the American Civil War Era, ed. Ben Wright and Zachary Dresser (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013), 175–­193. 5. Ward McAfee, Religion, Race, and Reconstruction: The Public School in the Politics of the 1870s (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 81. 6. Cathy Boeckmann, A Question of Character: Scientific Racism and the Genres of American Fiction, 1892–­1912 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000), 23. 7. Thomas C. Patterson, Inventing Western Civilization (New York: Monthly Review, 1997), 45–­46. 8. Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–­1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 195. 9. Patrick Brantlinger, Taming Cannibals: Race and the Victorians (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 194. 10. Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 34; John C. Burnham, How Superstition Won and Science Lost: Popularizing Science and Health in the United States (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987), 23; Christopher P. Toumey, “Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority,” Social Studies of Science 21, no. 4 (November 1991): 688. 11. James Gilbert, Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 6. 12. An example of how British anxiety over national power could translate into apocalypse is Richard Jeffries’s After London (1885). In a letter to a friend the same year his book appeared, Jeffries said that he believed that civilization was destined to be destroyed. See John Fowles, introduction to After London, by Richard Jeffries (London: Cassell, 1885; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), viii. After London describes the almost total destruction of the British Isles because of some sort of vague cosmological disaster, which is heavily implied to be a just judgment because of the corruption of English civilization. 13. Thomas Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (New York: Free Press, 1998), 69.

Notes to Pages 21–24

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14. Disch calls Verne an “American manqué” because Verne set slightly more than a third of his novels in the United States, depicting these future American societies as “nightmarish, capitalist dystopias.” This fact, however, seems to add further support to the idea that Americans were at least one source of anxiety to the nationals of other Western nations. See Disch, 59. 15. Jules Verne, Five Weeks in a Balloon; Or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen, trans. William Lackland (New York: Hurst, 1869; reprint, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004), 123. 16. Jules Verne, Around the World in 80 Days (New York: Airmont, 1963), 149. 17. Ibid., 151. 18. Edward Ellis, The Huge Hunter; or The Steam Man of the Prairies (London: Echo Library, 2007), 35. 19. Gregory M. Pfitzer, Popular History and the Literary Marketplace, 1840–­1920 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2008), 254. 20. Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-­Century America (New York: Random House, 1979). 21. Morton D. Paley, Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 289. 22. When I use the terms “evolution” and “Darwinism,” it is without regard to any particular theory, such as natural selection, deistic evolution, or Lamarckism, as has been the practice historically in the United States. Darwin himself hardly used the term “evolution,” and it was Herbert Spencer who adopted the term to describe the process of species development. Twentieth-­century scientists often used “evolution” to refer to what they believed was its only acceptable form—​­​­that is, evolution by natural selection. Darwinism itself has been used to stand for evolution generally, regardless of the existence of other evolutionary theories. See Peter J. Bowler, “The Changing Meaning of Evolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas 36, no. 1 (January–­March 1975): 95–­114; Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 91–­ 107; and James Moore, “Deconstructing Darwinism: The Politics of Evolution in the 1860s,” Journal of the History of Biology 24 (Autumn 1991): 353–­408. 23. Chambers tantalizingly held out the possibility of life on other planets as a result of evolution in Vestiges. See Robert Chambers, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (London: J. Churchill, 1844), 40, accessed 2 July 2016, https://archive.org/stream/vestigesofnatura00un se#page/n3/mode/2up/. 24. Edward Bulwer-­Lytton, The Coming Race (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005), xxiii (introductory material by David Seed). 25. Ibid., 25. 26. Edwin M. Eigner and George J. Worth, eds., Victorian Criticism of the Novel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 27. Bulwer-­Lytton, 25. “The doctrine of the Patriot Monroe” refers to the Monroe Doctrine. Articulated by President James Monroe in 1823, it expressed the sentiment that the Western Hemisphere was off-­limits to European imperialism. It has been interpreted since then as a declaration of the United States’ own imperialist ambitions for the hemisphere. 28. Ibid., 124–­125. 29. Ibid., 134. 30. Jeannie N. Shinozuka, “Deadly Perils: Japanese Beetles and the Pestilential Immigrant, 1920s–­1930s,” American Quarterly 65, no. 4 (December 2013): 831–­852.

202 Notes to Pages 24–29

31. See Matthew Phipps Shiel, The Yellow Danger (London: Grant Richards, 1898), for an example of English fears about “the yellow peril.” 32. Jack London, “The Yellow Peril,” in Revolution and Other Essays (New York: Macmillan, 1910), 284. 33. Pierton W. Dooner, The Last Days of the Republic (San Francisco: Alta California, 1880; reprint, New York: Arno, 1978), 158. 34. Ibid., 179. 35. Ibid., 184. 36. Ibid., 257–­258. 37. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991), 235. 38. Ibid., 5. 39. Ibid., 291. 40. Ibid., 309. 41. Ibid., 326. 42. Ibid., 109–­110. 43. Jean Pfaelzer, The Utopian Novel in America, 1886–­1896: The Politics of Form (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984), 112–­114. 44. Frederic Cople Jaher, Doubters and Dissenters: Cataclysmic Thought in America, 1885–­ 1918 (New York: Collier-­Macmillan, 1964), 3. 45. Ignatius Donnelly, Caesar’s Column, ed. Walter B. Rideout (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 34, 172. 46. Ibid., 38, 97. See Jaher, 133–­140, for a discussion of anti-­Semitism in Donnelly’s novel. 47. Donnelly, 235. 48. Ibid., 188. 49. Ibid., 235. 50. Ibid., 310, 251. 51. Ibid., 292. 52. Randall L. Schweller, Maxwell’s Demon and the Golden Apple: Global Discord in the New Millennium (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 33–­34; Crosbie Smith, “Natural Philosophy and Thermodynamics: William Thomson and ‘the Dynamical Theory of Heat,’” Journal for the History of Science 9, no. 3 (1976): 308–­309. 53. Bernard Lightman, “Victorian Sciences and Religions: Discordant Harmonies,” Osiris 16 (2001): 354. 54. Bruce Clarke, “Dark Star Crashes,” in From Energy to Information: Representation in Science and Technology, Art and Literature, ed. Bruce Clarke and Linda Henderson (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 59. 55. Helge Kragh, Matter and Spirit in the Universe: Scientific and Religious Preludes to Modern Cosmology (London: Imperial College Press, 2004), 54–­58. 56. Elizabeth Neswald, “Saving the World in the Age of Entropy: John Tyndall and the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” in The Age of Scientific Naturalism: Tyndall and His Contemporaries, ed. Bernard V. Lightman and Michael S. Reidy (Brookfield, VT: Pickering and Chatto, 2014), 21. 57. Hiebert, 1067; Kragh, 377. 58. Crosbie Smith and Norton Wise, Energy and Empire: A Biographical Study of Lord Kelvin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 54.

Notes to Pages 29–34

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59. W. Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question (London: Macmillan, 1865), accessed 3 July 2016, Google Books. 60. Ibid., 374. 61. George Levine, Darwin and the Novelists: Patterns of Science in Victorian Fiction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 159. 62. Allen MacDuffie, “Irreversible Transformations: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Scottish Energy Science,” Representations 96, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 1–­20. 63. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams in The Henry Adams Collection: Four Classic Works (Waxkeep, 2014), Kindle, loc. 232. See also Keith R. Burich, “Henry Adams, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the Course of History,” Journal of the History of Ideas 48, no. 3 (July–­September 1986): 467–­482. 64. H. G. Wells, “The Man of the Year Million,” in H. G. Wells: Journalism and Prophecy, 1893–­1946, ed. W. Warren Wagar (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964), 9. 65. H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (New York: Bantam, 1982), 101. 66. Ibid., 106. 67. H. G. Wells, “The Star,” University of Adelaide, 17 December 2014, accessed 25 June 2016, https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wells/hg/star/. 68. Camille Flammarion, Omega: The Last Days of the World (New York: Cosmopolitan, 1894; reprint, New York: Arno, 1975), 277. 69. Ibid., 286. 70. W. Warren Wagar, introduction to H. G. Wells: Journalism and Prophecy, 1893–­1946, by H. G. Wells (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964), xx. 71. H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (Mahwah, NJ: Watermill, 1980), 212. 72. Ibid., 241. 73. Ibid., 257. See also H. G. Wells, “The Empire of the Ants,” Literature Network, accessed 25 June 2016, http://www.online-­literature.com/wellshg/2881/. 74. Garrett P. Serviss, Edison’s Conquest of Mars (Rockville, MD: Wildside, 2006), 31, 21. 75. Ibid., 59. 76. Sir Lepel Griffin, The Great Republic (New York: Scribner and Welford, 1884), 49, 60. 77. William Thomas Stead, The Americanization of the World (New York: Horace Markley, 1901), 396. 78. John Mills, “The Aerial Brick Field,” in Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction, 1895–­1905, ed. Hilary and Dik Evans (London: Frederick Muller, 1976), 50. 79. “What Caused the Earthquake?,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 10 November 1895, 6, accessed 13 December 2006, http://infoweb.newsbank.com. 80. Herbet C. Fyfe, “How Will the World End?,” Pearson’s Magazine, July 1900, accessed 13 December 2006, http://www.forgottenfutures.com/library/wend/wend.htm. 81. Silvanus Phillips Thompson, The Life of William Thomson, Baron Kevil of Largs, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1910), 1001–­1002, accessed 1 June 2009, Google Books. 82. George C. Wallis, “The Last Days of Earth,” in Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction, 1895–­1905, ed. Hilary and Dik Evans (London: Frederick Muller, 1976), 148. 83. There was also fear that the world might not be able to produce enough food in the future. In 1898 the English chemist William Crookes gave an address to the British Association of the Advancement of Science in which he proposed that by 1931 there would not be enough wheat for the world’s demand; scientists had to step in and figure out a way to increase productivity of existing fields. He was confident, however, that chemists would find a way to make the

204 Notes to Pages 34–38

soil richer and, therefore, meet future demands for wheat. See William H. Brock, William Crookes (1832–­1919) and the Commercialization of Science (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2008), 376–­380. 84. Nikola Tesla, ”Some Experiments in Tesla’s Laboratory with Currents of High Potential and High Frequency,” Electrical Review (29 March 1899), 195–­197, 204, accessed 13 December 2006, http://www.lostartsmedia.com/nikolatesla.html. 85. On the legends surrounding Tesla, see W. Bernard Carlson, Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), Kindle, loc. 467. 86. Margaret Cheney, Tesla: Man Out of Time (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1981), 116–­117. For a brief discussion of the theory that Tesla caused the Tunguska explosion, see Marc J. Seifer, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla: Biography of a Genius (New York: Citadel, 1998), 476. 87. As with other apocalyptic fears, the idea that humankind’s attempts to control nature might lead to apocalypse appeared in a British novel first: Matthew Phipps Shiel, The Purple Cloud (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000). Though the novel ends on a hopeful note, arctic exploration into areas where God doesn’t want people to go results in an apocalypse at the beginning of the novel. 88. John Ames Mitchell, The Last American (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1902; reprint, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Literature House, 1970), 31. 89. Ibid., 110. 90. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Man and the Earth (New York: Fox, Duffield and Company, 1905), 12. 91. Ibid., 19, 41. 92. Ibid., 185. 93. David N. Livingston, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Culture of American Science (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987). 94. Shaler, 199–­208. 95. Ibid., 226. 96. Ruth Hubbard, “Abortion and Disability: Who Should and Who Should Not Inhabit the World?,” in The Disability Studies Reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis (New York: Routledge, 2006), 95. 97. Brian Aldiss with David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (New York: Atheneum, 1986), 176. See, for instance, E. M. Forster, “The Machine Stops,” in Classics of Modern Fiction: Ten Short Novels, 2d ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1972). 98. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Poison Belt (New York: Macmillan, 1913), 62. 99. Ibid., 96. 100. Ibid., 137. 101. Aldiss, 149. 102. Ibid., 175–­176. 103. Ibid. 104. Jay Luvaas, The Military Legacy of the Civil War: The European Inheritance (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), 2. 105. Ingrid P. Westmoreland, “Casualties,” in The European Powers in the First World War: An Encyclopedia (New York: Routledge, 2013), 172. 106. Henry F. May, The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Times, 1912–­1917 (New York: Knopf, 1959), 6. 107. Ibid., 361.

Notes to Pages 38–42

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108. Henry May, The Discontent of Intellectuals: A Problem of the Twenties (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963), 1. 109. For popular science works of the 1920s and 1930s written by British and European scientists, or, in the case of Papp, by historians of science, that speculate on the future of humanity, see Geoffrey Pomeroy Dennis, The End of the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930); J. B. S. Haldane, The Last Judgment: A Scientist’s Vision of the Future of Man (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927); Joseph McCabe, The End of the World (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1920); and Desiderius Papp, Creation’s Doom (New York: D. Appleton-­Century, 1934). 110. Stanton Arthur Coblentz, The Decline of Man (New York: Minton, Balch, and Company, 1925), 85. 111. Ibid., 163. 112. Ibid., 242–­247. 113. Ibid., 262. 114. Andrew Ross, Strange Weather: Culture, Science, and Technology in the Age of Limits (New York: Verso, 1991), 108–­109. See also Brooks Landon, Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars (New York: Twayne, 1997), 43. 115. Landon, 51. 116. Edward James, Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 52–­53. 117. Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, When Worlds Collide (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 30. 118. Ibid., 33, 44. 119. Ibid., 188. 120. A similar example is Laurence Manning, The Man Who Awoke (New York: Ballantine, 1979). Originally published in 1933, the narrator wonders if the suffering of billions that occurred before the secular millennium was worth it. 121. Stephen Vincent Benét, “The Place of the Gods,” Saturday Evening Post 210, no. 5 (31 July 1937): 60. 122. Ibid. 123. Stephen Vincent Benét, “Nightmare for Future Reference,” New Yorker 14 (2 April 1938): 21. 124. Ibid. 125. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-­ Century Evangelicalism, 1870–­1925, 2d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 67. 126. Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 1291. 127. E. P. Goodwin, “The Return of the Lord, Personal and Literal,” in Prophetic Studies of the International Prophetic Conference (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1886), reprinted in The Prophecy Conference Movement, ed. Donald W. Dayton (New York: Garland, 1988), 7. 128. Ibid., 11. 129. J. D. Herr, “Importance of Prophetic Study,” in Prophetic Studies, reprinted in Dayton, 155. 130. I. M. Haldeman, “Professor Shailer Mathews’ Burlesque on the Second Coming of Christ,” in Fundamentalism in American Religion, 1880–­1950, ed. Joel A. Carpenter (New York: Garland, 1988), 21. 131. James M. Gray, “The Static and the Dynamic: An Examination of Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick’s ‘Now Famous Sermon’ on Progressive Christianity,” in Carpenter, 5.

206 Notes to Pages 42–48

132. James M. Gray, “The Deadline of Doctrine Around the Church,” in Carpenter, 102. 133. Marsden, Fundamentalism, 217. 134. Ibid., 55. See also Brendan Pietsch, Dispensational Modernism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 843. 135. Sutton, loc. 432. 136. See Malcolm Bull and Keith Lockhart, Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-­day Adventism and the American Dream (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), Kindle. 137. Ibid., loc. 658. 138. Asa Oscar Tait, Heralds of the Morning: The Meaning of the Social and Political Problems of To-­day and the Significance of the Great Phenomena in Nature (Chicago: Review and Herald, 1899), 39. 139. Bull and Lockhart, loc. 125. 140. Ibid., loc. 36. 141. Tait, 241. 142. Ibid., 245. 143. Ibid., 248. 144. L. T. Townsend, End of the World: Biblical, Scientific and Other Points of View (Boston: Advent Christian Publication Society, 1913), 11–­12. 145. Ibid., 9. 146. Ibid., 12, 14–­15, 18, 21–­22, 19, 24. 147. Ibid., 27. 148. Ibid., 28. Emphasis is his. 149. Ibid., 31. 150. Ibid., 40. 151. Crawford Gribben, Evangelical Millennialism in the Trans-­Atlantic World, 1500–­2000 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 92–­93. 152. Brendan Pietsch argues that scholars like Boyer have overemphasized the influence of the Scofield Bible. See Pietsch, loc. 3391. See Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 97–­98, and Sutton, loc. 622, for the alternative view. 153. George Marsden, “Fundamentalism as an American Phenomenon: A Comparison with English Evangelicals,” Church History 46 (1977): 227, 231. 154. Clarence Larkin, Dispensational Truth or God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages (Glenside, PA: Author, 1920), 22. 155. Ibid., 21. 156. On reading nature like scripture, see Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), Kindle, loc. 2071. 157. Larkin, 28. 158. Ibid., 135. 159. 2 Peter 3:10 (KJV). 160. Larkin, 145. 161. Ibid., 147. 162. Marsden, Fundamentalism, 149. 163. Sutton, loc. 1980. 164. Edward J. Larson, Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution, rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 33–­57.

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165. The best account of the trial is in Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and American’s Continuing Debate over Science and Religion (New York: Basic Books, 2006). 166. Adam Laats, Fundamentalism and Education in the Scopes Era: God, Darwin, and the Roots of America’s Cultural Wars (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 85–­86. 167. Sutton, loc. 126. 168. Ibid., loc. 4402. 169. Laats, 94–­95. 170. Charles G. Trumball, Prophecy’s Light on Today, in Carpenter, 115–­119. 171. Nathan Grier Moore, Man and His Manor: The Past and Future of Earth and Man as Deduced from Accepted Modern Science (Chicago: Privately printed, 1934), 297. 172. Ibid., 300. Emphasis is his. 173. Ibid., 337. 174. Eleanor De Forest, Armageddon: A Tale of the Antichrist (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans, 1938), 60. 175. Ibid., 124. 176. Ibid., 179. 177. Ibid., 200. 178. Josh McMullen, Under the Big Top: Big Tent Revivalism and American Culture, 1885–­ 1925 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 80. 179. Grant Wacker, Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), Kindle, loc. 3814–­3940. 180. See, for example, D. Wesley Myland, The Latter Rain Covenant (1910; ebook reprint, Bishop’s Waltham, UK: Revival Library, 2014); Maria Woodworth-­Etter, Spirit Filled Sermons (1921; ebook reprint, Bishop’s Waltham, UK: Revival Library, 2014). 181. John R. Rice, Bible Lessons on the Book of Revelation (Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1943), 25. 182. Ibid., 53. Chapter 3 1. Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 95. 2. Marcelo Gleiser, The Prophet and the Astronomer: A Scientific Journey to the End of Time (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 161–­163. 3. Alan Lightman, The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science (New York: Pantheon, 2005), 93. 4. H. Bruce Franklin has listed prior works by both Americans and Britons that imagined some sort of radioactive weapon, such as Robert Cromie’s The Crack of Doom (1895), Roy Norton’s The Vanishing Fleets (1907), and Hollis Godfrey’s The Man Who Ended War (1908). See H. Bruce Franklin, War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 131. But it was Rutherford’s discovery that came after these works that really made the idea of nuclear energy feasible. 5. See Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 24; Spencer Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 81.

208 Notes to Pages 56–60

6. H. G. Wells, The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1914), 37–­38. 7. Ibid., 224. 8. Ibid., 146. 9. “Technical Demonstration/Incident of the Cosmos,” Columbia Workshop, CBS, 16 January 1937. Audiorecording available at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City, catalog ID R76:0200. This narrative appears to be based on a short story by Paul Y. Anderson (no obvious relation to Poul W. Anderson, the science fiction author), which was published in H. L. Mencken’s and George Jean Nathan’s literary magazine, The Smart Set, in June 1923. See The Smart Set Anthology, ed. Burton Rascoe and Groff Conklin (Garden City, NY: Halcyon House, 1934). For another example of a prewar nuclear short story, see Robert Heinlein, “Blowups Happen,” in The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, ed. John W. Campbell Jr. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952). 10. In one remarkable episode during World War II, military intelligence visited the offices of Astounding Science Fiction Magazine, edited by another luminary of early science fiction—​­​ J­ ohn W. Campbell. Campbell, who had studied physics, had a penchant for publishing atomic-­ related stories in the magazine. Cleve Cartmill’s story “Deadline,” published in 1944, coincidentally resembled the reality of the nuclear bomb being built by the Manhattan Project a little too much for the comfort of the military. See Brian Aldiss, with David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction (New York: Atheneum, 1986), 224. 11. Rhodes, Making, 664. 12. Ibid., 676. 13. Ibid., 675. 14. Roger Hilsman, From Nuclear Military Strategy to a World Without War: A History and a Proposal (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 11. 15. Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), 55, quoted in Ronald Takaki, Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 15. 16. Peter Michelmore, The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story (New York: Dodd Mead, 1969), 121–­122, quoted in Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod, To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans (Boston: South End, 1987), 33. See also Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 205. 17. One World or None, ed. Dexter Masters and Katherine Way (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1946). 18. The American military confiscated all film made at the two sites in the days following the bombings; the footage was kept classified until the late 1960s. 19. Philip Morrison, “If the Bomb Gets Out of Hand,” in Masters and Way, One World or None, 6. 20. See especially Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York: Delta Trade, 1998). See also L. prague De Camp, “Judgment Day” (1955), in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1978); and Philip K. Dick, Dr. Bloodmoney, or, How We Got Along After the Bomb (New York: Ace, 1965). 21. Ron Hirschbein, “Peace on Earth Without Goodwill Toward Men: Nuclear Weapons and American Millenarian Aspirations,” in The Writing on the Cloud: American Culture Confronts the Atomic Bomb, ed. Alison M. Scott and Christopher D. Geist (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997), 174.

Notes to Pages 60–65

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22. Slim Gaillard, “Atomic Cocktail,” Like an Atom Bomb: Apocalyptic Songs from the Cold War Era, 2004, Chrome Dreams, compact disc. 23. Fred Kirby, “Atomic Power,” Like an Atom Bomb: Apocalyptic Songs from the Cold War Era, 2004, Chrome Dreams, compact disc. 24. For more on the opinion of Truman and others that God gave Americans the bomb, see Paul Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (New York: Pantheon, 1985), 211. 25. Perry Miller, “The End of the World,” in Errand into the Wilderness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956), 238. 26. Clifton Fadiman, introduction to The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958). See also Charles William Sullivan, introduction to As Tomorrow Becomes Today, ed. Charles William Sullivan (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1974), 4. 27. See also Edmond Hamilton, “Day of Judgment,” in The Last Man on Earth, ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1982). 28. Philip Wylie, “Blunder,” in Strange Ports of Call, ed. August William Derleth (New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1948), 379. 29. Judith Merril, “That Only a Mother,” in Countdown to Midnight: Twelve Great Stories About Nuclear War, ed. H. Bruce Franklin (New York: Daw, 1984), 76–­87; John D. MacDonald, “A Child Is Crying,” in The Science Fiction Galaxy, ed. Groff Conklin (New York: Permabooks, 1950), 115–­130; Margaret St. Clair, “Quis Custodiet . . . ,” in Conklin, Science Fiction Galaxy, 131–­143. 30. Bradbury, Martian Chronicles, 86. 31. Damon Knight, “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?,” in Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 343. 32. Theodore Sturgeon, “Thunder and Roses,” in Nuclear War, ed. Gregory Benford and Martin Harry Greenberg (New York: Ace, 1988), 36. 33. Peter Clarke, The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), Kindle, loc. 6551–­9765. See also Correlli Barnett, The Lost Victory: British Dreams, British Realities, 1945–­1950 (London: Macmillan, 1995). 34. Gerald Bray, “English Protestantism to the Present Day,” in The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, ed. Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 105–­106. See also David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (New York: Routledge, 1989), Kindle, loc. 6168. 35. Roald Dahl, Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen (London: Collins, 1949), 133–­134. For a British nonnuclear apocalypse, see John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1951). 36. Dahl, 255. 37. Rhodes, Dark Sun, 241–­242. 38. H. Bruce Franklin, “Nuclear War and Science Fiction,” in Franklin, Countdown to Midnight, 23–­24. 39. Philip K. Dick, “Planet for Transients,” in A Handful of Darkness (London: Panther, 1980); Tom Godwin, “You Created Us” (1955), in Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1956, ed. T. E. Dikty (New York: F. Fell, 1956); Richard Matheson, I Am Legend and Other Stories (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1954); Lewis Padgett, Mutant (New York: Gnome, 1953); Arthur Porges, “The Rats,” in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Stories: 1952, ed. Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty (New York: F. Fell, 1952); Clifford D. Simak, City (New York: Macmillan, 1952).

210 Notes to Pages 65–71

40. Dick, “Planet for Transients,” 58–­59. 41. The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise (Los Angeles: 20th-­Century Fox, 2003). Authors presented the same theme in print. See Robert Crane, Hero’s Walk (New York: Ballantine, 1954); H. Beam Piper, Uller Uprising (New York: Ace, 1983); and William Tenn, “The Sickness,” in Time in Advance (New York: Bantam, 1958). 42. For other examples of humanity displaying a secularized original sin, see Philip K. Dick, The Penultimate Truth (New York: Leisure, 1954); Philip K. Dick, The Zap Gun (New York: Dell, 1965); E. B. White, “The Morning of the Day They Did It,” in The Second Tree from the Corner (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954), 59; Jack Williamson, The Humanoids (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949); J. T. McIntosh, Born Leader (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), 191; Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz (New York: Bantam, 1997); Leo Szilard, “Report on the Grand Central Terminal,” in The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961), 116. The Voice of the Dolphins is a collection of short stories that Szilard had published in various places during the 1940s and 1950s. 43. David Bradley, No Place to Hide (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 165. 44. R. E. Lapp, Must We Hide? (Cambridge, MA: Addison-­Wesley, 1949), 74. Emphasis is his. 45. Ibid., 157, 180. 46. Judith Merril, Shadow on the Hearth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950), 53. 47. Philip Wylie, Tomorrow! (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1954), 123–­124. Emphasis is his. 48. Aldous Huxley, Ape and Essence (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948). See also George Borodin, Spurious Sun (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1948). 49. For another gloomy British outlook on the future of humanity, see Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End (New York: Ballantine, 1953). 50. The United States tested its first thermonuclear device in 1952, but it was not until 1954 that it began testing a device that was actually feasible as a bomb. 51. Philip Wylie, Triumph (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963). 52. See the episodes “Time Enough at Last” (1959), “Third from the Sun” (1960), “The Shelter” (1961), and “One More Pallbearer” (1962). 53. Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 352–­367. This is the final chapter in Boyer’s book and provides an overview of American attitudes toward nuclear weapons from 1950 to 1980. 54. Linus Pauling, No More War! (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1958), 12. 55. Ibid., 149. 56. Helen Clarkson, “The Last Day,” in New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow, ed. Jean Marie Stine, Janrae Frank, and Forrest J. Ackerman (Stamford, CT: Longmeadow, 1995); Mordecai Roshwald, Level 7 (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1959). 57. Nevil Shute, On the Beach (New York: William Morrow, 1957), 36. A British work also published in 1957 was even more nihilistic in its ending, featuring God and Satan committing suicide after investigating life after death. See John Cowper Powys, Up and Out (Hamilton, NY: Colgate University Press, 1957). 58. Shute, 79. 59. Ibid., 239. 60. Ibid., 36. 61. Pat Frank, Alas, Babylon (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1959), 154. 62. Pat Frank, How to Survive the H-­Bomb . . . ​and Why (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott,

Notes to Pages 71–77

211

1962). For a survivalist take on nuclear war that is wholly negative—​­​­imagining the complete collapse of morality—​­​­see Ward Moore, “Lot” (1953), in Franklin, Countdown to Midnight, 108. See also the film that was based upon “Lot”—​­​­Panic in the Year Zero (1962). 63. Herman Kahn, On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios (Washington, DC: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), 194n11. 64. Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-­Safe (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1962). For another Kahn-­like character, see Wylie, Triumph, 262. 65. Charles Maland, “Dr. Strangelove (1964): Nightmare Comedy and the Ideology of Liberal Consensus,” American Quarterly 31, no. 5 (Winter 1979): 708. 66. See “Gun Thy Neighbor,” Time, 18 August 1961, accessed 17 January 2007, http://www .time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872694-­2,00.html. Also “The Sheltered Life,” Time, 20 October 1961, accessed 17 January 2007, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171 ,872787,00.html. 67. Ray Bradbury, “The Highway,” in The Illustrated Man (New York: Bantam, 1967), 42. For a similar scene, see Jack Kerouac, On the Road (New York: Penguin, 1997), 298. 68. Edgar Pangborn, Davy (New York: Ballantine, 1964; reprint, New York: Ballantine, 1973), 265. 69. Piers Anthony, Sos the Rope, in Battle Circle: A Trilogy (1968; New York: Avon, 1978), 162. See also A. M. Lightner, The Day of the Drones (New York: Bantam, 1970). For works that imagine degraded groups of humans amid the rubble of civilization, see Walter van Tilburg Clark, “The Portable Phonograph,” in Bangs and Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World, ed. James Frenkel (Chicago: Lowell House, 1999), 151; Harlan Ellison, “A Boy and His Dog,” in Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-­One Sermons to the Dead, ed. Walter M. Miller Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg (New York: D. I. Fine, 1985); Glen and Randa, directed by Jim McBride (1971). 70. Paul Williams, Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear Weapons and Post-­Apocalyptic Worlds (Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool, 2011), 17. 71. Ibid., 3. 72. See Weart, 174–­176. 73. Boyer, By the Bomb’s Early Light, 358. 74. Margot A. Henriksen, Dr. Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the Atomic Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), xix. 75. Elizabeth Benoist, Doomsday Clock (San Antonio, TX: Naylor Company, 1975); Dan Ljoka, Shelter (New York: Manor Books, 1977); Harlan Ellison, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” in I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (New York: Open Road Media, 2014). 76. Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 5354. 77. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, “I Went Through Hiroshima’s Hell,” Christian Herald 72, no. 2 (February 1949): 17. 78. Sutton, loc. 5212. 79. Barry Hankins, Francis Scheffer and the Shaping of Evangelical America (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 26. 80. Sutton, loc. 5264. 81. Ibid., loc. 5367. 82. Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 115–­118. 83. Ibid., 123.

212 Notes to Pages 77–83

84. Ibid., 124–­125. 85. Sam Swain, The Atomic Bomb and the World’s End (Akron, OH: National Spiritual Defense Crusade, 1946), 11. 86. Ibid., 22. 87. Ibid., 43. 88. Ibid., 47. 89. Ibid., 51. 90. Ibid., 59. 91. Wilbur M. Smith, This Atomic Age and the Word of God (Boston: W. A. Wilde, 1948), 41. 92. As quoted in ibid., 126: “But the heavens that are now, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. . . . ​But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 93. Ibid., 132. 94. Ibid., 271–­282, 313–­322. 95. Grant Wacker, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), Kindle, loc. 1006. 96. Ibid., loc. 1067. 97. “Revival in Our Time,” in The Early Billy Graham Sermon and Revival Accounts, ed. Joel A. Carpenter (New York: Garland, 1988), 55. 98. Ibid. 99. Ibid. 100. Carl McIntire, “A Communist Peace Conference,” 20th Century Reformation Hour (July 1961): 1. 101. “Christian World Peace Meeting,” Witness 46, no. 24 (13 July 1961): 2. Distributed as part of McIntire, “Communist Peace Conference.” 102. “Peace Assembly Holds War ‘Irresponsible’ in Atomic Age,” Ecumenical Press Service (23 June 1961): 4. Distributed as part of McIntire, “Communist Peace Conference.” 103. Ibid., 5. 104. Press release, “Ministers of the Gospel of Christ in Support of Nuclear Test Resumption,” 28 March 1962. 105. Gabriel Courier, “Gabriel Courier Interprets the News: ‘Atom Bomb Tests,’” Christian Herald (April 1962): 6. 106. J. Ronald Oakley, God’s Country: America in the Fifties (New York: Dembner, 1986), 368. 107. Frank, Alas, Babylon, 98. 108. Robert A. Cook, “Why Do You Want to Live Through?” Moody Monthly (February 1962): 21. 109. Lehman Strauss, God’s Plan for the Future (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1965), 20. 110. Ibid., 173, 186. 111. Lehman Strauss, The End of This Present World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1967), 49. 112. Ibid., 93. 113. Ibid., 121. 114. Salem Kirban, Guide to Survival (Huntingdon Valley, PA: Author, 1968), 40, 83, 172; Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970), 42.

Notes to Pages 83–91

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115. Lindsey, Late, 146–­168. The role of the Antichrist in bringing about worldwide peace is one reason why fundamentalists who subscribe to such prophecy beliefs are suspicious of any sort of overtures of peace, especially if those who attempt to instate it have dubious political sensibilities. For instance, some rewarded Henry Kissinger for his realpolitik tactics in the Middle East during the early 1970s by intimating that he was the Antichrist. See Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 207. 116. Lindsey, Late, 161. 117. Ibid., 166. 118. Ibid., 185. 119. Philip Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 166. 120. Salem Kirban, 666 (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1970), 237. 121. Ibid., 257. 122. Arthur E. Bloomfield, Before the Last Battle—​­​­Armageddon (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1971), 134. 123. Ibid., 160. 124. Ibid. 125. Tim LaHaye, The Beginning of the End (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1972), 9. 126. See, for instance, Ernest Angley, Raptured (Akron, OH: Winston, 1950); Leon O. Stewart, Too Late! (Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate, 1958). Descriptions are from Gary G. Cohen, Civilization’s Last Hurrah: A Futuristic Novel About the End (Chicago: Moody, 1974), 101, 107, 131. 127. Cohen, 205. 128. Stephen King, The Stand (New York: Anchor, 2008), Kindle, loc. 9292. Chapter 4 1. Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1977), 339. 2. Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 55–­59. 3. George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (New York: C. Scribner, 1864), 39–­41, accessed 24 April 2008, http://memory.loc.gov /cgi-­bin/query/r?ammem/consrv:@field(DOCID+@lit(amrvgvg07)):@@@$REF$. 4. See Shabecoff, 57. 5. Benjamin Kline, First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement, 2d ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 58–­59. 6. Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–­1920 (New York: Atheneum, 1969), 2. 7. Ibid., 141. 8. Donald Worster, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 24. 9. Ibid., 4. 10. Kansas City Star, 21 March 1935; Kansas City Times, 20 March 1935; Topeka Journal, 20, 23 March 1935, quoted in Worster, Dust Bowl, 17. 11. Worster, Nature’s Economy, 230. See also Shabecoff, 81–­82. 12. Worster, Nature’s Economy, 232.

214 Notes to Pages 91–97

13. Ibid., 340. 14. Samuel Hays, Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–­1985 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 4. 15. Aldo Leopold, “Conservation Ethic,” Birdlore 40, no. 2 (1938): 107, quoted in Curt D. Mein, “Moving Mountains: Aldo Leopold and ‘A Sand County Almanac,’” Wildlife Society Bulletin 25, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 700. 16. On the importance of Leopold to conservationists, see Shabecoff, 90. 17. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation (New York: Ballantine, 1970), 238–­239. 18. William Vogt, Road to Survival (New York: William Sloane, 1948), 78. 19. Fairfield Osborn, Our Plundered Planet (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), 37. 20. Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, DC: Island, 1993), 36–­37. 21. Vogt, 31. 22. Osborn, Plundered Planet, vii. 23. One notable exception was K. William Kapp, The Social Costs of Private Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950). However, historians of environmentalism tend to not emphasize this work as an important book for the burgeoning environmental movement. Kapp’s book was not entirely concerned with environmental issues; his work was largely a criticism of capitalism for making its effects, such as industrial accidents and the exploitation of natural resources, the responsibility of society, resulting in an inaccurate report of the total costs of production. 24. Fairfield Osborn, The Limits of the Earth (Boston: Little, Brown, 1953), 225; Karl Sax, Standing Room Only (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), 8. 25. See, for instance, Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–­1992 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 3. 26. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 2–­3. 27. Ibid., 6. 28. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (New York: Knopf, 1971), 200. 29. Barry Commoner, Science and Survival (New York: Viking, 1966), 24. 30. Sale, 22. 31. Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb Rev. ed. (New York: Ballantine, 1970), 150. 32. Lynn Townsend White Jr., “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis,” Science 155, no. 3767 (10 March 1967): 1203–­1207. 33. Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, no. 3859 (13 December 1968): 1243–­1248. 34. Kline, 80. 35. Gottlieb, 96; Sale, 18–­19; Shabecoff, 111. 36. Kline, 81; Shabecoff, 112–­117. 37. Shabecoff, 113. 38. Gottlieb, 110. 39. Ibid., 111. 40. John Fischer, “Survival U: Prospectus for a Really Relevant University,” in The Environmental Handbook: Prepared for the First National Environmental Teach-­In, ed. Garrett de Bell (New York: Ballantine, 1970), 138.

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41. Barry Weisberg, Beyond Repair (Boston: Beacon, 1971), 7. 42. Sale, 36–­37. 43. On the progress made in addressing environmental issues, see Patrick N. Allitt, A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (New York: Penguin, 2014). 44. Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 127. 45. Ibid., 41–­42. 46. Ibid., 115. 47. Stephen H. Schneider, The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival (New York: Plenum, 1976). See also Lowell Ponte, The Cooling (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1976). 48. Reid A. Bryson and Thomas J. Murray, Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World’s Changing Weather (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 123–­124. 49. Ibid., 144. 50. Ibid., 148–­149. 51. Weart, Discovery, 92. 52. See, for instance, Lawrence Solomon, The Deniers: The World-­Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (Minneapolis, MN: Richard Vigilante, 2008), 88. 53. Melvin A. Bernarde, Our Precarious Habitat (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970), 21–­22. 54. Charles E. Rosenberg, No Other Gods: On Science and American Social Thought, updated and expanded ed. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1997), xii. 55. Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 26. 56. James Gilbert, Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 7. 57. Commoner, Science and Survival, 8. 58. Commoner, Closing Circle, 189. 59. Ward Moore, Greener Than You Think, Classics of Modern Science Fiction, vol. 10 (New York: Crown, 1985), 299. 60. See, for example, Frank Herbert, The Dragon in the Sea (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956); Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” in Eco-­Fiction, ed. John Stadler (New York: Washington Square, 1971), 123. The biochemist Isaac Asimov (as Paul French) in David Starr, Space Ranger (1952) depicted a world of five billion people depending on colonies in space for its supply of food. Isaac Asimov (as Paul French), Lucky Starr Book 1: David Starr, Space Ranger and Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids (New York: Bantam, 1993), 17. 61. Although characters ate protein cakes in Make Room! Make Room!, the primary revelation of the film Soylent Green—​­​­that the protein cakes known as “soylent green” are people—​­​­was not in the book. Soylent Green, directed by Richard Fleischer (Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2008). 62. Harry Harrison, Make Room! Make Room! (New York: Doubleday, 1966; reprint, Boston: Gregg, 1979), 169. For another take on overpopulation, see Alice Glaser, “The Tunnel Ahead,” in As Tomorrow Becomes Today, ed. Charles William Sullivan (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1974), 445–­452. 63. See also Philip K. Dick, The Unteleported Man (New York: Berkley, 1966); James Blish and Norman L. Knight, A Torrent of Faces (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967); William F.

216 Notes to Pages 101–104

Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, Logan’s Run (New York: Dial, 1967); and Robert Silverberg, To Open the Sky (Boston: Gregg, 1967). 64. I have only found one work of science fiction that directly cites Ehrlich; this is William Walling’s short story “Triage,” which imagines a United Nations committee that aims for zero population growth. It accomplishes this by denying aid to communities in dire need. A character quotes Ehrlich in the story. See William Walling, “Triage,” in No Room for Man: Population and the Future Through Science Fiction, ed. Ralph S. Clem, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander (Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, 1979), 234–­235. 65. George Alec Effinger, “Wednesday, November 15, 1967,” in The Ruins of the Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future, ed. Thomas M. Disch (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971), 128–­129. 66. Thomas M. Disch, The Genocides (Boston: Gregg, 1978), 70–­71. See the remake of the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) for a straightforward species-­replacement narrative. Only one human is left alive among emotionless aliens. The aliens’ motivation is survival, though they tell one character that humans should be grateful to be rid of their emotions. 67. Ibid., 116. 68. Examples of extinction fiction include Dennis O’Neil, “Noonday Devil,” in Saving Worlds: A Collection of Original Science Fiction Stories, ed. Roger Elwood and Virginia Kidd (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 105–­115; James Blish, “We All Die Naked,” in Three for Tomorrow: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg (New York: Meredith, 1969); Frank M. Robinson, “East Wind, West Wind,” in Clem et al., No Room for Man; Philip Wylie, The End of the Dream (New York: Daw, 1973); and George Zebrowski, “Parks of Rest and Culture,” in Elwood and Kidd, Saving Worlds. 69. A 1970 poll reported that 30 percent of Americans contacted believed that the moon landings had been faked. See A. Bowdoin Van Riper, “Moon Landings,” in Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia, ed. Peter Knight (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-­CLIO, 2003), 500–­503. One long-­lived theory is that Stanley Kubrick’s set for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) doubled as the setting for the televised, faked lunar missions. 70. Poul Anderson, “Windmill,” in Elwood and Kidd, Saving Worlds, 169. 71. Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976; reprint, New York: Ballantine, 1987), 328. 72. Frank Herbert, The Green Brain (Thetford, UK: Thetford, 1966), 157. 73. William Jon Watkins and E. V. Snyder, Ecodeath (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 2. See also Gordon R. Dickson, The Pritcher Mass (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 5–­6; and H. M. Hoover, Children of Morrow (New York: Four Winds, 1973). 74. On futurist space visions, see Giancarlo Genta and Michael Rycroft, Space, the Final Frontier? (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 75. Ethan I. Shedley, Earth Ship and Star Song (New York: Viking, 1979), 7–­8. See Chad Oliver, “King of the Hill,” in Again, Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972), 188. 76. See also Planet of the Apes, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner (Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, 2006), DVD. 77. See Gregory Barton, Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 78. Meredith Veldman, Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain: Romantic Protest,

Notes to Pages 104–108

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1945–­1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 306. See also Carlos Sabillon, Manufacturing, Technology and Economic Growth (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2000), 307. 79. John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up (New York: Ballantine, 1972), 456. See also John Brunner, The Jagged Orbit (New York: Ace, 1969); Stand on Zanzibar (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968); and Total Eclipse (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974). 80. For British environmental fiction set in England, see J. G. Ballard, The Drought (London: Cape, 1965); John Christopher, The Long Winter (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962); and Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters (New York: Viking, 1972). 81. John Brunner, introduction to Philip Wylie, The End of the Dream (New York: Daw, 1973), 6. 82. Thomas M. Disch, “Introduction: On Saving the World,” in Disch, Ruins of the Earth, 6. See also John Stadler, preface to Stadler, Eco-­Fiction, x. 83. Arthur Herzog, Heat (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), 127. See also Poul Anderson, The Winter of the World (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), for a portrait of a future Earth in the throes of an ice age. 84. “Bio,” on official website of Arthur Herzog, accessed 7 January 2015, http://arthurher zog.com/ahbio.html. 85. Herzog, 158. 86. John W. Klotz, Ecology Crisis: God’s Creation and Man’s Pollution (St. Louis: Concordia, 1971), 159. 87. Salem Kirban, Guide to Survival (Huntingdon Valley, PA: Author, 1968), 4. Emphasis is his. 88. Ibid., 48. 89. Ibid., 51. 90. Ibid., 60–­61. 91. See “A Necessary Jolt,” Christianity Today 17, no. 9 (2 February 1970): 26; “Christians and Ecology,” Moody Monthly 71, no. 1 (September 1970): 8; James Hefley, “Christians and the Pollution Crisis,” Moody Monthly 71, no. 1 (September 1970): 20; Harold B. Kuhn, “Environmental Stewardship,” Christianity Today 14, no. 16 (8 May 1970): 46–­47; “Living Better with Less,” Christianity Today 18, no. 15 (26 April 1974): 29; Martin LaBar, “A Message to Polluters from the Bible,” Christianity Today 18, no. 21 (26 July 1974): 12; Carl H. Reidel, “Christianity and the Environmental Crisis,” Christianity Today 15, no. 15 (23 April 1971): 4; “Religion: At Sixes and Sevens in the Sixties and Seventies,” Christianity Today 14, no. 16 (8 May 1970): 26; “To Live Is to Pollute,” Christianity Today 18, no. 25 (27 September 1974): 38; “Where Is Tomorrow’s Food?,” Christianity Today 18, no. 24 (13 September 1974): 53. 92. “Fulfilling God’s Cultural Mandate,” Christianity Today 14, no. 11 (27 February 1970): 25. 93. Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970), 4. 94. Ibid., 82. 95. Ibid., 166. 96. Ibid., 102. 97. Salem Kirban, 666 (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1970), 99. 98. Ibid., 142. 99. Joe T. Odle, Is Christ Coming Soon? (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1971), 99–­101. 100. Hal Lindsey, Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1972), 99; Hal Lindsey with C. C. Carlson, The Terminal Generation (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1976), 62.

218 Notes to Pages 108–117

101. Tim LaHaye, The Beginning of the End (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1972), 173. 102. Willard Cantelon, The Day the Dollar Dies (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1973), 83. 103. Ibid., 86. 104. Chuck Smith, What the World Is Coming To (Costa Mesa, CA: Word for Today, 1993), 87. 105. Ibid., 88. 106. Ibid., 152. 107. Gary G. Cohen, Civilization’s Last Hurrah: A Futuristic Novel About the End (Chicago: Moody, 1974), 13. 108. Ibid., 186. 109. Salem Kirban, 1000 (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1973), 67. 110. George Otis, Millennium Man (Van Nuys, CA: Bible Voice, 1974), 35. Emphasis is his. 111. Ibid., 46. 112. Ibid., 67. 113. Donald L. Moore, Mirrors of the Apocalypse (Nashville, TN: Charter House, 1978), 22. 114. Nancy M. Tischler, “Three Mile Island,” Christianity Today 23, no. 15 (4 May 1979): 15. 115. David L. McKenna, “Science Says ‘Excuse Me’ After the Radioactive Burp,” Christianity Today 23, no. 22 (21 September 1970): 13. 116. Wilbur L. Bullock, “Ecology and Apocalypse,” Christianity Today 15, no. 15 (23 April 1971): 24. Chapter 5 1. Spencer R. Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 145–­146. 2. Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 6. 3. Robert Mann, Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad That Changed American Politics (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011). 4. Bernard Gwertzman, “President Sharply Assails Kremlin; Haig Warning on Poland Disclosed,” New York Times, 20 January 1981, sec. 1, p. 1, col. 4, accessed 11 January 2009, Lexis-­ Nexis Academic. 5. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 357. 6. In fact, Reagan’s proposal of SDI was not meant to worsen the arms race. Reagan dreamed of a shield that would be made available to the entire world and would eradicate nuclear war. However, the public did not recognize that SDI was an expression of Reagan’s idealism. See Edmund Morris, Dutch (New York: Random House, 1999), 562. 7. Gil Troy, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 138. Troy reports that 700,000 participated, but the police at the time estimated 500,000 were at the rally while another 250,000 participated in other events related to the rally. See also Ward Morehouse III, “Will US Warm to a Nuclear ‘Freeze’?” Christian Science Monitor, 14 June 1982, p. 1, accessed 31 December 2008, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 8. Bruce D. Clayton, Life After Doomsday: A Survivalist Guide to Nuclear War and Other Major Disasters, rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Dial, 1981). 9. Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Avon, 1982), 127. Schell’s book was the most popular book on nuclear war to be published since 1946 when John Hersey’s Hiroshima

Notes to Pages 117–120

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reported in detail the effects of the Hiroshima bombing. See Spencer R. Weart, Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 376. 10. Schell, 111. 11. Ibid., 126–­127. 12. Ibid., 20. The notion that the Earth could cool from the dust thrown into the atmosphere was first proposed in 1956 in a study that the United States Weather Bureau did on request by the Atomic Energy Commission. Ralph Lapp and Barry Commoner also discussed this possibility in books published during the 1960s. The historian Spencer Weart, however, argues that no one seriously thought that humanity could become extinct from this effect. See Weart, Nuclear Fear, 381–­382. 13. Paul R. Ehrlich, “The Biological Consequences of Nuclear War,” in The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War: The Conference on the Long-­Term Worldwide Biological Consequences of Nuclear War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984), 58. 14. Two conservative fictional takes on global environmental problems that same decade were Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn, Fallen Angels (Riverdale, NY: Baen, 1991); and John Blair, Bright Angel (New York: Ballantine, 1992), 49. 15. Michael Armstrong, After the Zap (New York: Warner, 1987); Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1995); Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, Warday and the Journey Onward (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984). See also Greg Bear, Eon (New York: Bluejay, 1985); Richard Bowker, Dover Beach (New York: Bantam, 1987); Orson Scott Card, The Folk of the Fringe (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989); Grace Chetwin, The Atheling (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987). 16. Not all were consistent with the conclusions of Sagan and the other scientists who proposed the concept. They emphasized that nuclear winter would last for only a few years—​­​­long enough to potentially starve humanity and other species but not so long as to constitute an ice age. Nevertheless, envisioning an ice age following a nuclear war appeared in works like Paul Edwards, “Primum Non Nocere,” in There Will Be War, vol. 9 of After Armageddon, ed. Jerry E. Pournelle (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989), 160–­174; and Susan Torian Olan, The Earth Remembers (Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1989). 17. See also Mitch Berman, Time Capsule (New York: Putnam, 1987); Octavia Butler, Dawn, in Lilith’s Brood (New York: Aspect, 2000); Bernard Malamud, God’s Grace (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982), 4; Claudia O’Keefe, Black Snow Days (New York: Ace, 1990); and Joan Slonczewski, The Wall Around Eden (New York: William Morrow, 1989). 18. James Morrow, This Is the Way the World Ends (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 146. 19. Ibid., 183. 20. See Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Nothing Sacred (New York: Doubleday, 1991), for an example of a small group of humans surviving nuclear winter because of a mystical intervention. 21. Testament, directed by Lynne Littman (Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures, 1984). 22. The Day After, directed by Nicholas Meyer (Hollywood, CA: ABC Circle Films, 1983). 23. Tom Morganthau, “After ‘The Day After,’” Newsweek (5 December 1983): 62, accessed 15 December 2008, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 24. “Day After: Perils of Nuclear War” (ABC News Special Presentation, 1991). 25. See also Special Bulletin, directed by Peter Watkins (Burbank, CA: Warner Home Archive, 2010), DVD. 26. See also Whoops Apocalypse!, directed by Tom Bussmann (New York: MGM/UA Home Video, 1989), VHS. This 1986 feature film is based on a TV series that aired in 1982 in England.

220 Notes to Pages 120–123

It is a satire of the Cold War involving the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, where the American and British heads of state bumble their way into a nuclear apocalypse. 27. Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker, expanded ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). See also Robert Swindells, Brother in the Land (New York: Puffin, 2000). This later edition has a new ending, post–­Cold War, that makes it clear the two teenagers make it to a place of refuge and live. 28. Walter Sullivan, “Study Finds Warming Trends That Could Raise Sea Levels,” New York Times, 22 August 1981, sec. 1, p. 1, col. 1, accessed 1 January 2009, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. See also Weart, Discovery, 143. 29. Seth Cagin and Philip Dray, Between Earth and Sky: How CFCs Changed Our World and Endangered the Ozone Layer (New York: Pantheon, 1993), 282. 30. Ibid., 285. 31. Robert L. Miller, “From the Publisher,” Time, 2 January 1989, accessed 22 January 2009, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,956631,00.html. 32. Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, DC: Island, 1993), 201. 33. Benjamin Kline, First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement, 2d ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 109. 34. E. O. Wilson, ed., Biodiversity (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988), 3. 35. David Challinor, epilogue to Wilson, Biodiversity, 496. 36. Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Random House, 1989), 46. 37. Ibid., 67. 38. Ibid., 82–­83. 39. Ibid., 186. 40. Arne Naess, Ecology, Community and Lifestyle, trans. and ed. David Rothenberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 45, quoted in Beneath the Surface: Critical Essays in the Philosophy of Deep Ecology, ed. Eric Katz, Andrew Light, and David Rothenberg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), ix. 41. McKibben, 191. 42. For other examples in this period, see Paul Ehrlich and Robert Ornstein, New World, New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious Human Evolution (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 2. 43. Stephen H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1989), 2–­8. 44. Ibid., 237. 45. Ibid., 13–­23, 36–­65. 46. Ibid., 283–­284. 47. On science fiction writers as prophets in the 1980s, see Isaac Asimov, introduction to Through Darkest America by Neal Barrett Jr. (New York: Congdon and Weed, 1986), vii; Gregory Benford, “Introduction,” in Nuclear War, ed. Gregory Benford and Martin Harry Greenberg (New York: Ace, 1988), 4; H. Bruce Franklin, “Nuclear War and Science Fiction,” in Countdown to Midnight: Twelve Great Stories About Nuclear War, ed. H. Bruce Franklin (New York: Daw, 1984), 11; Harry Harrison, “Afterword: The End of War,” in There Won’t Be War, ed. Harry Harrison and Bruce McAllister (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991), 302–­303, 309; Bruce McAllister, introduction to Harrison and McAllister, There Won’t Be War, 2; and John Maclay, introduction to Nukes: Four Horror Writers on the Ultimate Horror, ed. John Maclay (Baltimore: Maclay and Associates, 1986), 8. For a minority statement that science fiction could promote a

Notes to Pages 123–125

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more conservative viewpoint, see Jerry Pournelle, “After Armageddon: New Beginnings,” in Pournelle, After Armageddon, 4–­5. 48. Aliens save humanity in Hilbert Schenck, A Rose for Armageddon (New York: Pocket, 1982). Evolution through nuclear war is in David R. Palmer, “Emergence,” in Children of the Future, ed. Isaac Asimov and Martin Harry Greenberg (Milwaukee, WI: Raintree, 1984); and Miracle Mile, directed by Steve de Jarnatt (HBO Home Video, 1995). Miracle Mile did feature the extinction of life and purpose, along the lines of Morrow, but the main character invokes evolution in his last line, saying the world was for the insects now. See also Kurt Vonnegut, Galapágos (New York: Dell, 1985; reprint, New York: DeltaTrade, 1999); and Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, Nature’s End: The Consequences of the Twentieth Century (New York: Warner, 1986), 380. 49. Grace Chetwin, The Atheling (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987); Ursula K. Le Guin, “Newton’s Sleep,” in Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, ed. Kim Stanley Robinson (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994); Butler; Slonczewski. Other themes that continued to make an appearance include using nuclear war as a device to imagine a drastically different future society. See Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate to Women’s Country (New York: Bantam, 1988). Also, the theme of mutants continued to appear but tended to be confined to more superficial adventure-­type novels. See Jerry Earl Brown, Earthfall (New York: Ace, 1990); and C. T. Westcott, Silver Wings and Leather Jackets: The Autobiography of Colonel William T. Bucko, USFACT (Ret.) (New York: Dell, 1989). 50. See also David Brin, The Postman (New York: Bantam, 1985); and F. G. Wyllis, “Only the Strong Survive,” in Pournelle, There Will Be War, 68–­75. 51. Michael Armstrong, Agviq: The Whale (New York: Warner, 1990). 52. Ardath Mayhar, The World Ends in Hickory Hollow (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 24. 53. Ibid., 182. 54. Luke Rhinehart, Long Voyage Back (New York: Delacorte, 1983), 386. 55. K. Robinson, 198. See also Card, 211. 56. See also Ben Bova’s Test of Fire (New York: Pinnacle, 1982). 57. The story of Fermi’s Paradox apparently circulated orally in scientific circles until written down by Eric Jones, a Los Alamos scientist, in 1984 in a report for Los Alamos National Laboratory. He based his account on the memory of Hans Mark, who had heard the anecdote in the 1950s, and he then confirmed the account with Emil Konopinski, Edward Teller, and Edward York, Fermi’s lunchtime companions, who were still living in 1984. See Eric M. Jones, “ ‘Where Is Everybody’: An Account of Fermi’s Question” (Los Alamos, NM: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1984), accessed 21 January 2016, http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/ documents/fullText/ACC0055.pdf. Google’s Ngram application, which tracks the use of terms in published books over time, reports no incidences of “Fermi’s Paradox” in print until 1976. 58. See Michael H. Hart, “An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 16 (1975): 135. 59. See also T. L. Sherred and Lloyd Biggle Jr., Alien Main (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985). 60. Norman Spinrad, Songs from the Stars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980), 8. 61. Ibid., 280. 62. Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia Emerging (Berkeley, CA: Banyan Tree, 1981); Ursula K. Le Guin, Always Coming Home (New York: Harper and Row, 1985).

222 Notes to Pages 126–129

63. James Lovelock, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, reissued ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), vii. 64. Poul Anderson, Orion Shall Rise (New York: Pocket, 1984), 42. See also Spinrad, Songs from the Stars, 22. 65. P. Anderson, Orion, 81. See also Robert Froese, The Hour of Blue (Unity, ME: North Country, 1990), 246–­247; Michael Tobias, Voice of the Planet (New York: Bantam, 1990), 316. 66. Cagin and Dray, 228. 67. Philip Shabecoff, A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 227–­233; Kirkpatrick Sale, The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–­1992 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 69. 68. Riley E. Dunlap, “Trends in Public Opinion Toward Environmental Issues: 1965–­1990,” in American Environmentalism: The U.S. Environmental Movement, 1970–­1990, ed. Riley E. Dunlap and Angela G. Mertig (Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 1992), 106. See also Sale, Green Revolution, 69. 69. Lois Gibbs, a Love Canal housewife who helped organize the residents of Love Canal, also helped found a Citizens’ Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste to help other groups around the country mount similar fights. 70. Sale, Green Revolution, 58. 71. Grant Wacker, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), Kindle, loc. 1002. 72. Letter to public from Jerry Falwell, 16 May 1985, Fundamentalism File, Bob Jones University. 73. More Reagan comments appeared in a 1968 article in Christian Life that revealed he believed in the importance of the Six Days’ War—​­​­suggesting that at no other time had so many prophecies come true. Furthermore, in 1970, Reagan had a social gathering with Pat Boone and other evangelicals in which they discussed Bible prophecy. See Grace Halsell, Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelists on the Road to Nuclear War (Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1986), 42–­ 43. James Mill, president of the Senate while Reagan was governor of California, said that during a private dinner with Reagan, Reagan said that Russia will attack Israel and be destroyed by nuclear weapons in return. See Lionel van Deerlin, “Mills Tells of Reagan’s Bible Belief,” San Diego Union-­Tribune, 19 August 1985, sec. B, p. 7. 74. John Herbers, “Armageddon View Prompts a Debate,” New York Times, 24 October 1984, sec. A, p. 1, 15 April 2000, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 75. Ibid. 76. Ibid. See also “Critics Fear That Reagan Is Swayed by Those Who Believe in a ‘Nuclear Armageddon,’” Christianity Today 28 (14 December 1984): 48–­49. 77. “Three Views of Armageddon,” New York Times, 24 October 1984, sec. A, p. 25, accessed 5 July 2016, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 78. “Critics Fear That Reagan Is Swayed,” 48, 51. 79. Paul S. Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 141. 80. U.S. House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, “Briefing by the Secretary of the Interior” (HRG-­1981-­IIA-­0001; 5 February 1981), accessed 3 January 2000, LexisNexis @ Congressional Hearings Digital Collection. This quote has often been cited in works as evidence of the anti-­environmental bent of Reagan’s administration, but scholars and journalists usually omit the last part, beginning with “whatever it is.” This has the effect of making it seem like Watt

Notes to Pages 130–131

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said that there was no point to environmental policies because of the impending Second Coming, when in fact he said the opposite. For examples, see Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More, 141; Dave Helvarg, The War Against the Greens: The “Wise-­Use” Movement, the New Right, and the Browning of America (Madison, WI: Big Earth, 2004), 38; Robert Francis Kennedy, Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 26; Ted Kerasote, Return of the Wild: The Future of Our Natural Lands (Washington, DC: Island, 2001), 103; Shabecoff, 208; Jeffrey St. Clair, Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature (Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 2004), 15. 81. See Ken Adelman, Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-­Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War (New York: HarperCollins, 2014); Romesh Ratnesar, Tear Down This Wall: A City, a President and the Speech That Ended the Cold War (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009). For historians who disagree, see Robert Elias, “Ronald Reaganism Ended the Cold War—​­​­in the 1960s,” in Why the Cold War Ended: A Range of Interpretations, ed. Ralph Summy and Michael E. Salla (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995), 33–­46; Raymond Garthoff, The Great Transition: American-­Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1994). 82. Michael Schaller et al., Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America’s Fortieth President (New York: Routledge, 2015), 16. 83. Beth A. Fischer, “US Foreign Policy Under Reagan and Bush,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Endings, vol. 3, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 267–­288. 84. David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (New York: Routledge, 1989), Kindle, loc. 6508; Crawford Gribben, Evangelical Millennialism in the Trans-­Atlantic World, 1500–­2000 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 111–­120. 85. Alan Rodgers, Fire (New York: Bantam, 1990), 4. See also Morrow, 225. John Kessel, Good News from Outer Space (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989), a novel about millennial fever in which a prominent reverend predicts the Rapture by 1999, gives details about the role of Gog and Magog in the end-­times, associates the wormwood mentioned in Revelation with Chernobyl, and expects the resurgence of the Roman Empire according to Bible prophecy. See also Robert McCammon, Swan Song (New York: Pocket, 1987). A supernatural postnuclear tale, it features a character who thinks the bombs are a sign of the Rapture, and a Lucifer-­like figure who tries to convince the U.S. president to set off the rest of the bombs in order to throw the Earth off its axis. 86. Rodgers, 60. 87. Ibid., 75. Another character tries to genetically engineer “the beast” of Revelation to hasten the End (140). 88. On the use of nuclear weapons in the final battle of Armageddon, particularly as it applies to the 2 Peter 3 passage, see Doug Clark, Shockwaves of Armageddon (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1982), 91; Dave Hunt, Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1990), 264; Texe Marrs, Mega Forces: Signs and Wonders of the Coming Chaos (Austin, TX: Living Truth, 1988), 6; and Larry W. Poland, How to Prepare for the Coming Persecution (San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1990), 41. On the deceptiveness of peace without Christ, see Bruce Dunn, “The World Will End!,” Moody Monthly (June 1983): 14; Michael H. Heuer, “Should Christians Support a Nuclear Freeze?,” Faith for the Family (December 1983): 7; Dave Hunt, Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust: The New Age Movement in Prophecy (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1983), 29; Texe Marrs, Dark Secrets of the New Age: Satan’s Plan for a One

224 Notes to Pages 132–134

World Religion (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1988), 23; Jerry Robeson, Suddenly . . . ​One Was Taken! (Woodburn, OR: Shiloh, 1990), 4. 89. David Hocking, The Coming World Leader: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1988), 7; Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity: Spiritual Discernment in the Last Days (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1987), 37; Hal Lindsey, The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon (New York: Bantam, 1982), 25. 90. “Billy Graham: God Won’t Allow a Holocaust,” Washington Post, 14 December 1981, Metro, p. D8, accessed 5 July 2001, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. See also Dunn, 13; Frederick C. Rogers, “Fear and the Nuclear Threat: A Call to Faith and Courage in an Age of Apprehension,” Christian News (5 November 1984): 9. 91. G. Russell Evans, “Church Peacemakers Gloss over Scriptural Commands,” Baptist Challenge (July 1983): 8. 92. Dunn, 13. 93. Charles Austin, “Divided Evangelicals Avoid a Policy Stand on Nuclear Freeze,” New York Times, 12 March 1984, sec. 1., p. 7, col. 1, accessed 5 July 2001, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 94. Henry M. Morris, The Revelation Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), 360. Jerry Falwell speaks of this possibility in Dr. Jerry Falwell Teaches Bible Prophecy (Lynchburg, VA: Old-­Time Gospel Hour, 1979), 51. 95. See also Robert W. Faid, Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come? (Tulsa, OK: Victory House, 1988), 157. 96. Mike Evans, The Return (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1986), 102; Faid, 154; Jerry Johnston, The Last Days of Planet Earth (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1991), 189; Marrs, Mega Forces, 107; Texe Marrs, Rush to Armageddon (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1987), 103; Robeson, 148, 171; Edgar Whisenant, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 (Nashville, TN: World Bible Society, 1988), 56; Edgar Whisenant, On Borrowed Time (Nashville, TN: World Bible Society, 1988), 55. 97. Whisenant, On Borrowed Time, 36. 98. Faid, 210. 99. Lindsey, 1980s, 26, 28. For a vague recital of ecological problems as foretelling the End, see David Hocking, The Coming World Leader: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1988), 195. 100. On climate change, see H. Morris, Revelation Record, 209. 101. Ibid., 304. 102. Evans, 43. See also Faid, 114–­115; Grant Jeffrey, Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny (Toronto: Frontier Research Publications, 1988), 210–­211. 103. Evans, 54–­55. 104. Johnston, 16–­17. 105. Ibid., 17. 106. Ibid., 21. 107. For assertions along these lines, see Marrs, Mega Forces, 230; Whisenant, On Borrowed Time, 54. 108. Marrs, Mega Forces, 236. 109. Charles C. Ryrie, The Final Countdown, (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1982; reprint, Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1989), 105. 110. Ibid., 106.

Notes to Pages 135–139

225

111. John Walvoord, The Prophecy Knowledge Handbook (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1990), 563. 112. Ibid., 564. See also Nathan M. Meyer, The Patmos Prediction (Salem, VA: Prophecy, 1989), 143–­144. 113. “Critics Fear That Reagan Is Swayed,” 51. 114. Sarah M. Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 15. 115. Ibid., 23. 116. Ibid., 33. 117. Ibid., 145. See also Pike, 146, on the Age of Aquarius. Pike argues that the apocalyptic vision of New Agers and Neopaganists is similar to that of conservative evangelicals. 118. See also Roland R. Hegstad, Pretenders to the Throne (Boise, ID: Pacific, 1990), 108. 119. Constance Cumbey, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: The New Age Movement and Our Coming Age of Barbarism (Shreveport, LA: Huntington House, 1983), 58. 120. Ibid., 157, 167. 121. Hunt, Peace, Prosperity, 9, 23. 122. Ibid., 36. 123. See, for example, “The Environmental Crisis: How Bible Prophecy Details Both the Crisis and the World’s Reaction to It!,” Omega-­Letter (April 1989): 13; James McKeever, “Father God and Mother Nature,” End-­Times News Digest (June 1990): 5; Patti Lalonde, “Earth Day: The Day the Earth Came to Life,” Omega-­Letter (May 1990): 6–­7; Peter Lalonde, One World Under Anti-­Christ: Globalism, Seducing Spirits and Secrets of the New World Order (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1991), 17; Glenn E. Schicker, “Tending the Garden as God’s Stewards,” Eternity (September 1988): 68. 124. See, for example, “Environmental Crisis,” 6, 13; Hunt, Global Peace, 164; Peter Lalonde, 129; McKeever, 5. 125. See, for instance, Norm Bomer, “April 22 Will Be ‘Earth Day’: Even More, It’s the Lord’s Day,” Word (21 April 1990): 13; “Environmental Crisis,” 6; Hunt, Global Peace, 163–­164, 288; Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon, America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice: The Rise of New Age Shamanism (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1988), 96; Hugh Pyle, “What God Says About the Earth,” Sword of the Lord (25 May 1990): 20, 22. 126. Hunt and McMahon, America, 77. See also Hunt, Global Peace, 170. 127. Hunt and McMahon, America, 94. 128. A 2012 Kindle edition of This Present Darkness includes the 3.5 million number in its front matter. Frank Peretti, This Present Darkness: A Novel (New York: Howard, 2012). 129. Ibid., loc. 3624–­3627. 130. “Environmental Crisis,” 6. 131. Hunt, Global Peace, 163–­164. 132. See Henry M. Morris, “No. 221 The Bible, Creation and Ecology,” Impact (November 1991): i. 133. David W. Cloud, “Ecumenism and Ecology,” Foundation: A Magazine of Biblical Fundamentalism (April–­June 1988): 5. 134. McKeever, 2, 6. 135. Ibid., 6. 136. Bomer, 13; Patti Lalonde, 5; Peter Lalonde, 128; McKeever, 5; Pyle, 20; “What Is Earth Day?,” Foundation: A Magazine of Biblical Fundamentalism (March–­April 1990): 30. 137. Patti Lalonde, 7.

226 Notes to Pages 139–145

138. Robeson, 15. 139. Hunt, Global Peace, 208. 140. Peter Lalonde, 128. 141. “Socialists Use Environment,” End-­Times News Digest (January 1991): 14. 142. Ibid., 14–­15. For a recitation of similar views, see also McKeever, 2. 143. “Socialists Use Environment,” 15. 144. David Brin, Earth (New York: Bantam, 1990), 366. See also Dakota James, Milwaukee the Beautiful (New York: D. I. Fine, 1986), 127. 145. Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl, Our Angry Earth (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991), 1. Chapter 6 1. For a contemporary discussion of apocalyptic fears inspired by the Persian Gulf War, see John Elson, “Apocalypse Now?” Time (11 February 1991), accessed 26 May 2009, http://www .time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972285,00.html. 2. John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (New York: Broadway, 1996), 6. 3. Mark Hertsgaard, Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future (New York: Broadway, 1998), 151; Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (New York: Metropolitan, 1998), 7. 4. Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis (Reading, MA: Addison-­Wesley, 1991), 284. 5. Bob Musil, “Focus on Health,” in Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement, ed. Jonathan Isham and Sissel Waage (Washington, DC: Island, 2007), 13. 6. Ehrlich and Ehrlich, xiii. 7. Lisa M. Benton and John Rennie Short, “A Case Study,” in Environmental Discourse and Practice (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 1999), 187–­190. 8. Musil, 105–­107. 9. Andrew Jordan, The Europeanization of British Environmental Policy: A Departmental Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), xv. 10. Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), 311. For similar expressions that humanity has reached a crucial moment in the history of the species, see David Ehrenfeld, Beginning Again: People and Nature in the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), vii; Ross Gelbspan, The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-­up, the Prescription, updated ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 193; and Hertsgaard, 308. 11. Ed Ayres, God’s Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999), 10–­11. 12. Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 283. 13. “1992 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity,” accessed 29 April 2009, http://www .ucsusa.org/about/1992-­world-­scientists.html. 14. Albert Gore, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1992), 257. See also Ayres, 294, for the opinion that humans are too disconnected from nature.

Notes to Pages 145–151

227

15. Ehrlich and Ehrlich, xi; Jane Holtz Kay, Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back (New York: Crown, 1997), 128. 16. Ehrenfeld, 192–­193. See also Stephanie Mills, In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land (Boston: Beacon, 1995), 26. 17. Gore, 279. See also Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?—​­​­A Scientific Detective Story (New York: Plume, 1997), 49. 18. Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, and Jørgen Randers, Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future (Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green, 1992), 8. 19. Gelbspan, 32. 20. Ibid., 12, 165. 21. Wm. H. Kötke, The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future (Portland, OR: Arrow Point, 1993), 310. 22. Diamond, 311. 23. Ibid., 8–­9. 24. Ibid., 213–­214. 25. E. O. Wilson, “Is Humanity Suicidal?,” in In Search of Nature (Washington, DC: Island, 1997), 184–­185. 26. Kötke, 94. 27. Ibid., 123. 28. See, for example, Edith Efron, The Apocalyptics: Cancer and the Big Lie; How Environmental Politics Controls What We Know About Cancer (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). 29. Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Optimism (New York: Viking, 1995), 25. See also Patrick N. Allitt, Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism (New York: Penguin, 2014), Kindle, loc. 2659, on Easterbrook as a counterenvironmentalist rather than as an anti-­environmentalist. 30. Meadows, Meadows, and Randers, xiii. 31. Paul Halpern, Countdown to Apocalypse: A Scientific Exploration of the End of the World (New York: Plenum Trade, 1998), 15–­16. 32. Ayres, 93. 33. Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing “Hoax” (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2002), 172. 34. Kathryn Olmstead, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1–­2. 35. Stephen H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1989), x. 36. Henry H. Bauer, Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 10. 37. Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1992; reprint, New York: Bantam, 2003), 293. 38. For other examples of novels where environmental problems are in the background but are not the main plot, see Bart Kosko, Nanotime (New York: Avon, 1997); Lance Olsen, Burnt (La Grade, OR: Wordcraft of Oregon, 1996); and Bruce Sterling, Distraction (New York: Bantam, 1998). 39. Will Baker, Shadow Hunter (New York: Pocket, 1993), 53. See James F. David, Footprints of Thunder (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1995); Eric L. Harry, Arc Light (New York:

228 Notes to Pages 151–155

Simon and Schuster, 1994); and Teretha G. Houston, Armageddon at Defcon 1 (Stone Mountain, GA: Tyger, 1999). 40. Keith Kirts, The Devil’s Drainpipe: A Nuclear Waste Comedy (Santa Monica, CA: ­Synapse—​­​­Centurion, 1993), 137. 41. Tom Cool, Infectress (New York: Baen, 1997), 20. See also David Hewson, Solstice (New York: Warner, 1999), 143; and Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica (New York: Bantam, 1998). 42. One exception is Nancy Kress, Maximum Light (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1998), 100. Kress addresses the issue of endocrine disruptors creating a fertility crisis. 43. T. Coraghessan Boyle, A Friend of the Earth (New York: Viking, 2000), 8. For Boyle’s vision of an apocalypse through plague, see “After the Plague,” in After the Plague and Other Stories by T. C. Boyle (New York: Viking, 2001). This story also diverges from the approach of other writers; though the apocalypse is portrayed as an environmentalist’s dream, the plague is in fact the complete failure of humanity. 44. Boyle, Friend, 240. 45. Hugh B. Cave, The Dawning (New York: Leisure, 2000), 328; Jack McDevitt, Eternity Road (New York: HarperPrism, 1998), 401. 46. On the end of civilization, see also Jean Hegland, Into the Forest (Corvallis, OR: Calyx, 1996); Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower (New York: Warner, 2000); and Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (New York: Seven Stories, 1998). 47. Ken Grimwood, Into the Deep (New York: William Morrow, 1995), 82. 48. Robert Silverberg, Hot Sky at Midnight (New York: Bantam, 1994), 24. See also Ernest Callenbach, “Chocco,” in Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, ed. Kim Stanley Robinson (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994), 201; and Bruce Sterling, Heavy Weather (New York: Bantam, 1994), 207. 49. Norman Spinrad, Deus X (New York: Bantam, 1993), 1. 50. See also Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos series, where artificial intelligence evolves into godlike entities and threaten to destroy humanity. One of the major themes, however, is that love and the sacrifices necessary for love are still relevant in a universe ruled by technological creatures. The first book was published in 1989, and the rest were released in the 1990s. 51. Vernor Vinge, “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-­ Human Era” (1993), accessed 30 May 2009, http://www-­rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc /singularity.html. 52. Ken MacLeod, The Cassini Division (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1998), 115. 53. Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1999), 250. See also Vernor Vinge, Fire Upon the Deep (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1992). 54. For a British take on the meteor-­based disaster, see Arthur C. Clarke, The Hammer of God (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1993). Clarke’s faith in technology allows the world to escape destruction in his narrative. 55. Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, Ill Wind (New York: Forge, 1995). 56. Kevin E. Ready, Gaia Weeps: The Crisis of Global Warming (Prescott, AZ: Saint Gaudens, 1998), 37. 57. Ibid., 191. 58. Ibid., 306–­307. 59. For an apocalyptic world set after global warming has raised ocean levels, see also the film Waterworld (Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2009). 60. Rock Brynner, The Doomsday Report (New York: William Morrow, 1998), 12.

Notes to Pages 155–160

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61. Ibid., 56, 62. 62. Ibid., 268–­269. 63. Will Bradley, Ark Liberty (New York: Penguin, 1992), 15, 29. 64. On the same theme, see also John Barnes, Mother of Storms (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994). 65. See, for example, R. J. Pineiro, Ultimatum (New York: Forge, 1994). 66. Houston, 46. 67. On the British economy, see Nicholas Woodward, The Management of the British Economy, 1945–­2001 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004), 195–­231. 68. In the 2006 British-­American film, the ending is hopeful: Faron sacrifices himself to get the baby to safety. 69. Matthew Avery Sutton, American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), Kindle, loc. 2262–­2275. 70. See, for example, John F. Walvoord, Prophecy: 14 Essential Keys to Understanding the Final Drama (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1993), 1. Billy Graham’s assertion that the war proved that nuclear war was still a threat was a minority opinion among conservative evangelicals, in keeping with his increasingly liberal take since the 1980s on issues like nuclear abolition. See Billy Graham, Storm Warning (Dallas, TX: Word, 1992), 42–­43. 71. John Ankerberg and John Weldon, One World: Biblical Prophecy and the New World Order (Chicago: Moody, 1991), 70. 72. Ibid. 73. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Are We Living in the End Times? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), 139–­140. 74. See, for example, Grant R. Jeffrey, Armageddon: Earth’s Last Days, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), 102. 75. Graham, Storm Warning, 42–­43. 76. Hal Lindsey, Planet Earth—​­​­2000 a.d.: Will Mankind Survive? (Palos Verdes, CA: Western Front, 1994), 188. 77. David Dolan, The End of Days (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1997), 255; Paul Meier, The Third Millennium (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1993), 166–­167. 78. Meier, 166–­167. 79. Dolan, 255; Hal Lindsey, Apocalypse Code (Palos Verdes, CA: Western Front, 1997), 112, 146; Meier, 166–­167; John Wheeler Jr., Earth’s Two-­Minute Warning: Today’s Bible-­Predicted Signs of the End Times (North Canton, OH: Leader Company, 1996), 174–­175. 80. James L. Guth and Lyman A. Kellstedt, “How Green Is My Pulpit?,” Books and Culture (May/June 1996): 13. 81. Ibid. 82. Graham, Storm Warning, 244. 83. Lindsey, Planet Earth, 93. 84. Lindsey, Apocalypse Code, 12. 85. Ibid., 91. 86. Ibid., 104–­105. 87. The interpretations of scientists were not necessarily accurate, however. Lindsey quotes E. O. Wilson’s essay, “Is Humanity Suicidal?,” and says that Wilson concludes that aliens will have to save the human race from itself; Wilson says no such thing. See Lindsey, Planet Earth, 71. 88. Tim LaHaye, foreword to Wheeler, xiii.

230 Notes to Pages 160–163

89. For more positive comments about environmental scientists, see Lindsey, Apocalypse Code, 137; and John Wesley White, Thinking the Unthinkable (Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 1992), 56. 90. Joyce G. Bradshaw, “The Earth Is the Lord’s,” Associate Reformed Presbyterian (January 1993): 16; “The Emperor’s Closet,” Christian Conscience (April 1995): 25; William A. Hoesch, “The Hyper-­Environmentalists,” Foundation for Family and Nation 64 (April 1994): c; Grant R. Jeffrey, Apocalypse: The Coming Judgment of the Nations (Toronto: Frontier Research, 1992), 177; Texe Marrs, Circle of Intrigue: The Hidden Inner Circle of the Global Illuminati Conspiracy (Austin, TX: Living Truth, 1995), 189. 91. Bradshaw, 16. 92. Marrs, Circle of Intrigue, 98. 93. J. E. Kirk, The Last Shall Be First (Glendale, AZ: Apogee Arts, 1993), 15. 94. Ibid., 100. 95. Jonathan R. Cash, The Age of the Antichrist (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2000), 389. 96. See Cash, 170, 180; Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Nicolae: The Rise of the Antichrist Assassins (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1997), 132. 97. James BeauSeigneur, In His Image: Book One of the Christ Clone Trilogy, 2d ed. (Rockville, MD: SelectiveHouse, 2000), 347. See also James BeauSeigneur, Birth of an Age: Book Two of the Christ Clone Trilogy, 2d ed. (Rockville, MD: SelectiveHouse, 2001), 13, 20, 24. 98. Robert Barkman, “Ecology and the Bible,” Baptist Examiner 68, no. 10 (1 October 1996): 1; Bradshaw, 16; Sydney L. Donahoe, “Caring for Creation,” Charisma (April 1992): 68–­ 70; Ken S. Ewert, “All Who Hate Me Love Death: A Look at Popular Environmentalism,” Chalcedon Report (May 1996): 23; Ken S. Ewert, “Biblical Stewardship vs. Environmentalism,” Chalcedon Report (June 1996): 19; Jeffrey, Apocalypse, 252; Jeffrey, Armageddon, 287; Lindsey, Planet Earth, 33; Hilbert R. Siegler, “A Christian Environmental Ethic,” Bible-­Science News 31, no. 2 (1993): 1. 99. Hoesch, a; Texe Marrs, Days of Hunger, Days of Chaos: The Coming Great Food Shortages in America (Austin, TX: RiverCrest, 1999), 66. 100. Graham, Storm Warning, 244. 101. Writers continued to argue that Christ would restore the environment during the millennium. See Kirk, 209. 102. Donahoe, 71. 103. Ibid. See also R. S. Beal Jr., “Can a Premillennialist Consistently Entertain a Concern for the Environment? A Rejoinder to Al Truesdale,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 46, no. 3 (September 1994): 177. 104. Lindsey, Planet Earth, 32, 309. See also Mark Hartwig, “Christianity and the Environment: A Primer,” Bible-­Science News 32, no. 3 (1994): 3; and Siegler, 2. 105. Lindsey, Planet Earth, 121. 106. Ibid., 122. 107. Ibid., 123. 108. Ibid., 32. 109. “Global Warming: Fact or Fantasy?” National Liberty Journal (January 1998): 4; Michael Sanera, “Facts, Not Fear,” Focus on the Family (August 1997): 10. 110. Hoesch, c. 111. “Emperor’s Closet,” 26.

Notes to Pages 163–170

231

112. Ibid., 27. 113. John F. McManus, “Environmental Paganism,” New American (15 June 1992): 14. See also Ewert, “All Who Hate Me,” 26. 114. “Jane Fonda Says Christianity May Prevent Our Next Stage of Evolution,” Bible-­Science News 30, no. 9 (1992): 13. 115. Hoesch, b–­c. See also Marrs, Circle of Intrigue, 104. 116. Marrs, Circle of Intrigue, 104. 117. Ewert, “Biblical Stewardship,” 21; Lindsey, Planet Earth, 33, 47, 92–­93. 118. Ewert, “All Who Hate Me,” 20. See also Ewert, “Biblical Stewardship,” 23. Emphasis is his. 119. Dave Hunt, How Close Are We? Compelling Evidence for the Soon Return of Christ (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993), 103. 120. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Soul Harvest: The World Takes Sides (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), 34. 121. Ibid., 417. 122. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Apollyon: The Destroyer Is Unleashed (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999), 267–­268. 123. LaHaye and Jenkins, Are We Living, 186. 124. For instance, on 2 Peter 3:10 (one of the first passages interpreted in the light of nuclear weapons), see Keith M. Bailey, Christ’s Coming and His Kingdom: A Study in Bible Prophecy (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1999), 177; Jeffrey, Apocalypse, 297; and Wheeler, 174. 125. David Reagan, The Master Plan: Making Sense of the Controversies Surrounding Bible Prophecy Today (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993), 210–­211. 126. Lindsey, Apocalypse Code, 110–­111. See also Pat Robertson, The End of the Age (Nashville, TN: Word, 1996), 397. 127. Clifford Goldstein, The Day Evil Dies (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1999), 93. 128. Edward Yourdon and Robert A Roskind, The Complete Y2K Home Preparation Guide (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1999), xxx. Chapter 7 1. See Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 1. 2. Avner Falk, Islamic Terror: Conscious and Unconscious Motives (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008), 19–­20. 3. The Core (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros., 2003); James Dashner, The Maze Runner (New York: Random House, 2009); Peter Heller, The Dog Stars (New York: Vintage, 2012); Jeremiah: The Complete First Season (Los Angeles: MGM, 2004); The Lottery, “Pilot,” created by Timothy J. Sexton, Lifetime Network, 20 July 2014; Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse (Northampton, MA: Small Beer, 2011); Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life as We Knew It (Life As We Knew It Series) (Boston: HMH Books for Young Readers, 2008); Robert J. Sawyer, WWW: Wonder (New York: Ace, 2012); Brian Francis Slattery, Lost Everything (New York: Tor, 2012); Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2004); Daniel H. Wilson, Robopocalypse: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2011). 4. For a recent film that addresses inequality and climate change, see the South Korean film Snowpiercer, directed by Joon-­Ho Bong (Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay, 2013).

232 Notes to Pages 170–175

5. See “The Day After Tomorrow Reviews,” Rotten Tomatoes, accessed 5 July 2016, http:// www.rottentomatoes.com/m/day_after_tomorrow/reviews/?type=top_critics; “An Inconvenient Truth Reviews,” Rotten Tomatoes, 5 July 2016, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inconve nient_truth/reviews/?type=top_critics. 6. Ted Steinberg, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 75. 7. Jeffrey Kluger, “The Tipping Point,” Time, 3 April 2006, 36–­42. 8. James Hansen, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), Kindle, loc. 4227. 9. Ibid., loc. 4265. 10. Bill McKibben, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet (New York: Macmillan, 2010), Kindle, loc. 89. 11. Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (New York: Henry Holt, 2014), Kindle, loc. 3826. 12. “FAQs,” Dark Mountain Project, accessed 14 January 2016, http://dark-­mountain.net /about/faqs/. See also Daniel Smith, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It . . . ​and He Feels Fine,” New York Times Magazine, 17 April 2014, accessed 14 January 2016, http://www.nytimes .com/2014/04/20/magazine/its-­the-­end-­of-­the-­world-­as-­we-­know-­it-­and-­he-­feels-­fine.html. 13. Justin Wm. Moyer, “How ‘Survivalists’ in America Are Planning Their Escape from Ebola Apocalypse—​­​­Right Now,” Washington Post, 6 October 2014, accessed 5 July 2016, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-­mix/wp/2014/10/06/how-­survivalists-­in-­america -­are-­plannning-­their-­escape-­from-­ebola-­apocalypse-­right-­now/. See also “Fear Spreads Faster Than Ebola,” USA Today, 15 October 2014, accessed 5 July 2016, Academic Search Complete. 14. See also The Book of Eli (Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2010), for an unnamed apocalypse, which celebrates Christianity as the best hope for the world. 15. Cormac McCarthy, The Road (New York: Knopf, 2006), 231. 16. See also the Canadian author Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (New York: Knopf, 2014). 17. Christopher Goffard, “In the End, Rapture Believers Weren’t Going Anywhere,” Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2001, accessed 14 January 2016, http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/22 /local/la-­me-­rapture-­20110522. 18. “Mr. and Mrs. Apocalypse,” 10 July 2010, accessed 14 January 2016, http://www.thedaily beast.com/videos/2010/07/10/wife-­swap-­2012-­apocalypse-­family.html. 19. Steve Almond, “The Apocalypse Market Is Booming,” New York Times Magazine, 27 September 2013, accessed 23 January 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/the -­apocalypse-­market-­is-­booming.html. 20. Gordon van Gelder, ed., Welcome to the Greenhouse: New Science Fiction on Climate Change (New York: OR Books, 2011), Kindle, loc. 60. 21. See also Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, eds., After (Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia) (New York: Disney Hyperion, 2012), Kindle. 22. Allen Ashley, ed., Catastrophia (2010; ebook reprint, East Yorkshire, UK: PS, 2011), Kindle, loc. 6. 23. Paula Guran, ed., After the End: Recent Apocalypses (Germantown, MD: Prime, 2013), Kindle, loc. 78.

Notes to Pages 176–184

233

24. “A Clean Escape,” Masters of Science Fiction, hosted by Stephen Hawking (Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay, 2008). 25. Robert Reed, “Pallbearer,” in The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF, ed. Mike Ashley (Dubois, PA: Mammoth, 2010), Kindle, loc. 278. 26. “Brave New World, Part 2,” Fringe: Season 4, (Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2012). 27. Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman: A Novel (Philadelphia: Quirk, 2013), Kindle, loc. 404. 28. For an American film along the same lines, see Seeking a Friend at the End of the World, directed by Lorene Scafaria (Los Angeles: Focus Features, 2012). See also Melancholia, directed by Lars von Trier (New York: Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2012), for an artful treatment of the same themes. 29. Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series, starring Edward James Olmos (Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2010). 30. For instance, by plague and decline in fertility. See Heller; Jeremiah: The Complete First Season; Lottery, “Pilot.” 31. For a Canadian vampire apocalypse, see Peter Watts, Blindsight (New York: Tor, 2010). This work also addresses Fermi’s Paradox. 32. Joseph D’Lacey, Black Feathers (Nottingham, UK: Angry Robot, 2013), Kindle, loc. 2474. 33. Emma Tomalin, Religions and Development (New York: Routledge, 2013). 34. See also Christian Cantrell, Containment (Seattle, WA: 47th North, 2012), 156. 35. Nancy Kress, After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall: A Novel (Kalispell, MT: Tachyon Production Studios, 2013), Kindle, loc. 2089. See also Knowing (Santa Monica, CA: Summit Entertainment, 2009); and Robert Charles Wilson, Burning Paradise (New York: Tor, 2014). 36. Hugh Howey, Third Shift—​­​­Pact, part 8 of the Silo Series (self-­published, 2013), Kindle, loc. 444. 37. William Forstchen, One Second After (New York: Forge, 2011), Kindle, loc. 100. 38. Ibid., loc. 5478. 39. Ibid., loc. 6926. 40. John F. Harris, “God Gave U.S. ‘What We Deserve,’ Falwell Says,” Washington Post, 14 September 2001, C03, accessed 15 January 2015, Lexis-­Nexis Academic. 41. Hal Lindsey, The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad (Murrieta, CA: Oracle House Publishing, 2002; reprint, Murrieta, CA: Oracle House Publishing, 2005), 208. 42. Crawford Gribben, Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), Kindle, loc. 2409; Jerry B. Jenkins, Soon: The Beginning of the End, 2003, reprint (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), Kindle. 43. Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Real Nature of the Beast (Washington, DC: WND, 2009), Kindle, loc. 726. 44. Ibid., loc. 1658. 45. See also Patrick Heron, Return of the Antichrist and the New World Order (Greenville, SC: Ambassador International, 2010). 46. Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger (Chicago: Frontline, 2011), paperwhite Kindle version, loc. 1448.

234 Notes to Pages 184–192

47. Jonathan Cahn, The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-­Year-­Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future and Your Future! (Chicago: Frontline, 2014), Kindle, loc. 2489. 48. Ibid. 49. Gribben, loc. 2480. 50. Tim LaHaye and Craig Parshall, The End Collection: Edge of Apocalypse (2010), Thunder of Heaven (2011), Brink of Chaos (2012), Mark of Evil (2014) (The End Series) (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), Kindle, loc. 9142. 51. Tim LaHaye and Ed Hindson, eds., Exploring Bible Prophecy from Genesis to Revelation: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2006), 530. 52. Ibid., 492. 53. Bill Salus, Nuclear Showdown in Iran: Revealing the Ancient Prophecy of Elam (La Quinta, CA: Prophecy Depot, 2014), Kindle, loc. 39. 54. Paul Bortolazzo, The Coming (A Last Days Trilogy Book 1) (Montgomery, AL: Author, 2011), Kindle, loc. 118. 55. Hal Lindsey, The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad (Washington, DC: WND, 2011), Kindle, loc. 2966. 56. David Jeremiah, The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns About the New Global Economy (Nashville, TN: Faithwords, 2010), Kindle, loc. 545. 57. Bortolazzo, loc. 6906. 58. John Jacobsen, The Beginning of the End (Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2009), paperwhite Kindle version, loc. 1257. 59. The Wesleyan traditions include Methodism, the Holiness movement, and Pentecostalism. Antinomianism is the heretical idea that Christians, once saved, are no longer beholden to the laws of mankind or to common morality. 60. LaHaye and Hindson, 191, 193. 61. Chuck Missler, The Rapture: Christianity’s Most Preposterous Belief (Coeur d’Alene, ID: Koinonia House, 2014), Kindle, loc. 981. 62. Jack Kelley, 7 Things You Have to Know to Understand End Times Prophecy (Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2011), Kindle, loc. 885. See also John Hagee, Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change (Nashville, TN: Worthy, 2013), Kindle, loc. 3031. 63. Kelley, loc. 914. 64. Steve Ashburn, The Next Nuclear War: Are We on the Edge of the End Times? (Sisters, OR: Deep River, 2014), Kindle, loc. 37. 65. Ibid., loc. 202. 66. Ibid., locs. 475–­481. 67. Salus, Cahn, and other evangelicals now believe that Jeremiah 49:34–­39 predicts the dispersal of Iranians into the world, which they say is providing hope for Iranian Christians who want to leave Iran. See Salus, loc. 66. 68. Ed Hindson, 15 Future Events That Will Shake the World (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2014), Kindle, loc. 1167. 69. LaHaye and Parshall, loc. 6775. 70. Missler, loc. 237. 71. Hagee, loc. 607. 72. Ibid., loc. 742.

Notes to Pages 192–193

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73. Jeff Kinley, As It Was in the Days of Noah (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2014), Kindle, loc. 485. 74. Ibid., loc. 756. 75. Ibid., loc. 1083. 76. Thomas Horn, Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers (Crane, MO: Anomalos, 2013), Kindle, loc. 2442. 77. Cris Putnam and Thomas Horn, Exo-­Vaticana: Petrus Romanus, Project LUCIFER, and the Vatican’s Astonishing Exo-­Theological Plan for the Arrival of an Alien Savior (Crane, MO: Defender, 2013), Kindle. 78. See http://www.raptureready.com and http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/.

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Primary Sources religious fiction Angley, Ernest. Raptured. Akron, OH: Winston, 1950. Balizet, Carol. The Seven Last Years. Lincoln, VA: Chosen, 1978. BeauSeigneur, James. Birth of an Age: Book Two of the Christ Clone Trilogy. 2d ed. Rockville, MD: SelectiveHouse, 2001. ———. In His Image: Book One of the Christ Clone Trilogy. 2d ed. Rockville, MD: SelectiveHouse, 2000. Bortolazzo, Paul. The Coming. A Last Days Trilogy Book 1. Montgomery, AL: Author, 2011. Cahn, Jonathan. The Harbinger. Chicago: Frontline, 2011. ———. The Mystery of the Shemitah: The 3,000-­Year-­Old Mystery That Holds the Secret of America’s Future, the World’s Future and Your Future! Chicago: Frontline, 2014. Cash, Jonathan R. The Age of the Antichrist. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2000. Cohen, Gary G. Civilization’s Last Hurrah: A Futuristic Novel About the End. Chicago: Moody, 1974. De Forest, Eleanor. Armageddon: A Tale of the Antichrist. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans, 1938. Dolan, David. The End of Days. Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1997. Grant, Jean. The Revelation. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992. Jacobsen, John. The Beginning of the End. Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2009. Kincaid, Paulette. So Close. Enumclaw, WA: Redemption, 2014. Kirban, Salem. 666. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1970. ———. 1000. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1973. Kirk, J. E. The Last Shall Be First. Glendale, AZ: Apogee Arts, 1993. Krenning, Stephanie. Millennium Gone: A Novel. Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 2014. LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. Left Behind Collection. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2014. LaHaye, Tim, and Craig Parshall. The End Collection: Edge of Apocalypse (2010), Thunder of Heaven (2011), Brink of Chaos (2012), Mark of Evil (2014). The End Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014.

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Manker, Dayton A. They That Remain: A Story of the End Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1941. Meier, Paul. The Third Millennium. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1993. Robertson, Pat. The End of the Age. Nashville, TN: Word, 1996. Robeson, Jerry. Suddenly . . . ​One Was Taken! Woodburn, OR: Shiloh, 1990. Stewart, Leon O. Too Late! Franklin Springs, GA: Advocate, 1958. religious nonfiction Ankerberg, John, and John Weldon. One World: Biblical Prophecy and the New World Order. Chicago: Moody, 1991. Ashburn, Steve. The Next Nuclear War: Are We on the Edge of the End Times? Sisters, OR: Deep River, 2014. Bailey, Keith M. Christ’s Coming and His Kingdom: A Study in Bible Prophecy. Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1999. Bloomfield, Arthur E. Before the Last Battle—​­Armageddon. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany Fellowship, 1971. Bryan, William Jennings. The Menace of Darwinism. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1922. Cantelon, Willard. The Day the Dollar Dies. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1973. Carpenter, Joel A., ed. Fundamentalism in American Religion, 1880–­ 1950. Vol. 23, The Fundamentalist-­Modernist Conflict: Opposing Views on Three Major Views. New York: Garland, 1988. Church, J. R. Hidden Prophecies in the Psalms. Oklahoma City: Prophecy, 1986. Clark, Doug. Shockwaves of Armageddon. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1982. Cumming, John. The Seventh Vial; or, The Time of Trouble Begun. New York: G. W. Carleton, 1871. Dayton, Donald W. The Prophecy Conference Movement. Vol. 2, Prophetic Studies of the International Prophetic Conference. Ed. Donald W. Dayton. New York: Garland, 1988. Evans, Mike. The Return. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1986. Faid, Robert W. Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come? Tulsa, OK: Victory House, 1988. Falwell, Jerry. Dr. Jerry Falwell Teaches Bible Prophecy. Lynchburg, VA: Old-­Time Gospel Hour, 1979. Goldstein, Clifford. The Day Evil Dies. Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1999. Graham, Billy. “Revival in Our Time.” In The Early Billy Graham: Sermon and Revival Accounts, ed. Joel A. Carpenter, 1–­140. New York: Garland, 1988. ———. Storm Warning. Dallas, TX: Word, 1992. Hagee, John. Four Blood Moons: Something Is About to Change. Nashville, TN: Worthy, 2013. Hegstad, Roland R. Pretenders to the Throne. Boise, ID: Pacific, 1990. Heuer, Michael H. “Should Christians Support a Nuclear Freeze?” Faith for the Family (December 1983): 7–­8. Hindson, Ed. 15 Future Events That Will Shake the World. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2014. Hocking, David. The Coming World Leader: Understanding the Book of Revelation. Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1988. Horn, Thomas. Nephilim Stargates: The Year 2012 and the Return of the Watchers. Crane, MO: Anomalos, 2013. Hunt, Dave. Global Peace and the Rise of Antichrist. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1990. ———. How Close Are We? Compelling Evidence for the Soon Return of Christ. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993.

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———. Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust: The New Age Movement in Prophecy. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1983. Hunt, Dave, and T. A. McMahon. America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice: The Rise of New Age Shamanism. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1988. ———. The Seduction of Christianity: Spiritual Discernment in the Last Days. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1987. Jeffrey, Grant R. Apocalypse: The Coming Judgment of the Nations. Toronto: Frontier Research, 1992. ———. Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny. Toronto: Frontier Research Publications, 1988. Jenkins, Jerry B. Soon: The Beginning of the End. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004. Jeremiah, David. The Coming Economic Armageddon: What Bible Prophecy Warns About the New Global Economy. Nashville, TN: Faithwords, 2010. Johnston, Jerry. The Last Days of Planet Earth. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1991. Kelley, Jack. 7 Things You Have to Know to Understand End Times Prophecy. Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2011. Kinley, Jeff. As It Was in the Days of Noah. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2014. Kirban, Salem. Guide to Survival. Huntingdon Valley, PA: Author, 1968. ———. Under the Spell of Mother Earth. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1992. Klotz, John W. Ecology Crisis: God’s Creation and Man’s Pollution. St. Louis: Concordia, 1971. Kurschner, Alan. Antichrist Before the Day of the Lord: What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Return of Christ. Pompton Lakes, NJ: Eschatos, 2014. LaHaye, Tim. The Beginning of the End. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1972. ———. Foreword. In Earth’s Two-­Minute Warning: Today’s Bible-­Predicted Signs of the End Times by John Wheeler Jr., xiii–­xiv. North Canton, OH: Leader Company, 1996. LaHaye, Tim, and Ed Hindson, eds. Exploring Bible Prophecy from Genesis to Revelation: Clarifying the Meaning of Every Prophetic Passage. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2011. LaHaye, Tim, and Jerry B. Jenkins. Are We Living in the End Times? Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1999. Lalonde, Peter. One World Under Anti-­Christ: Globalism, Seducing Spirits and Secrets of the New World Order. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1991. Larkin, Clarence. Dispensational Truth or God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages. Glenside, PA: Author, 1920. Lindsey, Hal. Apocalypse Code. Palos Verdes, CA: Western Front, 1997. ———. The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad. Murrieta, CA: Oracle House Publishing, 2002. Reprint, Murrieta, CA: Oracle House Publishing, 2005. ———. The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad. Washington, DC: WND, 2011. ———. The Late Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970. ———. The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon. New York: Bantam, 1982. ———. Planet Earth—​­2000 a.d.: Will Mankind Survive? Palos Verdes, CA: Western Front, 1994. ———. Satan Is Alive and Well on Planet Earth. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1972. Lindsey, Hal, with C. C. Carlson. The Terminal Generation. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell, 1976. Marrs, Texe. Circle of Intrigue: The Hidden Inner Circle of the Global Illuminati Conspiracy. Austin, TX: Living Truth, 1995. ———. Dark Secrets of the New Age: Satan’s Plan for a One World Religion. Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1988.

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———. Days of Hunger, Days of Chaos: The Coming Great Food Shortages in America. Austin, TX: RiverCrest, 1999. ———. Mega Forces: Signs and Wonders of the Coming Chaos. Austin, TX: Living Truth, 1988. ———. Rush to Armageddon. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1987. McBirnie, William S. 50 Progressive Messages from Armageddon to New Earth. Norfolk, VA: McBirnie Publications, 1944. Meyer, Nathan M. The Patmos Prediction. Salem, VA: Prophecy, 1989. Missler, Chuck. The Rapture: Christianity’s Most Preposterous Belief. Coeur d’Alene, ID: Koinonia House, 2014. ———. The Revelation Record: A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Revelation. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988. Odle, Joe T. Is Christ Coming Soon? Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1971. Otis, George. Millennium Man. Van Nuys, CA: Bible Voice, 1974 Poland, Larry W. How to Prepare for the Coming Persecution. San Bernardino, CA: Here’s Life, 1990. Putnam, Cris, and Thomas Horn. Exo-­Vaticana: Petrus Romanus, Project LUCIFER, and the Vatican’s Astonishing Exo-­Theological Plan for the Arrival of an Alien Savior. Crane, MO: Defender, 2013. Reagan, David. The Master Plan: Making Sense of the Controversies Surrounding Bible Prophecy Today. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1993. Rice, John R. Bible Lessons on the Book of Revelation. Murfreesboro, TN: Sword of the Lord, 1943. Richardson, Joel. The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Real Nature of the Beast. Washington, DC: WND, 2009. Ryrie, Charles C. The Final Countdown. Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1989. Salus, Bill. Nuclear Showdown in Iran: Revealing the Ancient Prophecy of Elam. La Quinta, CA: Prophecy Depot, 2014. Smith, Chuck. What the World Is Coming To. Costa Mesa, CA: Word for Today, 1993. Smith, James Roy. God Still Speaks in the Space Age. Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill, 1970. Smith, Wilbur M. This Atomic Age and the Word of God. Boston: W. A. Wilde, 1948. Strauss, Lehman. The End of This Present World. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1967. ———. God’s Plan for the Future. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1965. Swain, Sam. The Atomic Bomb and the World’s End. Akron, OH: National Spiritual Defense Crusade, 1946. Tait, Asa Oscar. Heralds of the Morning: The Meaning of the Social and Political Problems of To-­ day and the Significance of the Great Phenomena in Nature. Chicago: Review and Herald, 1899. Townsend, L. T. End of the World: Biblical, Scientific and Other Points of View. Boston: Advent Christian Publication Society, 1913. Trumball, Charles G. Prophecy’s Light on Today. New York: F. H. Revell, 1937. Reprinted in Fundamentalism in American Religion, 1880–­1950, vol. 30, ed. Joel A. Carpenter. New York: Garland, 1988. Walvoord, John F. Every Prophecy of the Bible. Colorado Springs, CO: Chariot Victor, 1999. ———. Prophecy: 14 Essential Keys to Understanding the Final Drama. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1993.

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Wheeler, John, Jr. Earth’s Two-­Minute Warning: Today’s Bible-­Predicted Signs of the End Times. North Canton, OH: Leader Company, 1996. Whisenant, Edgar. 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Nashville, TN: World Bible Society, 1988. ———. On Borrowed Time. Nashville, TN: World Bible Society, 1988. White, John Wesley. Thinking the Unthinkable. Lake Mary, FL: Creation House, 1992. general and science fiction Anderson, Kevin J., and Doug Beason. Ill Wind. New York: Forge, 1995. Anderson, Poul. Orion Shall Rise. New York: Pocket, 1984. ———. The Winter of the World. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Anthony, Piers. Sos the Rope. In Battle Circle: A Trilogy. New York: Avon, 1978. Armstrong, Michael. After the Zap. New York: Warner, 1987. ———. Agviq: The Whale. New York: Warner, 1990. Arnason, Eleanor. A Woman of the Iron People. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Ashley, Allen, ed. Catastrophia. East Yorkshire, UK: PS, 2011. Asimov, Isaac (as Paul French). Lucky Starr Book 1: David Starr, Space Ranger and Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids. New York: Bantam, 1993. Barnes, John. Mother of Storms. New York: Tom DohertyAssociates, 1994. Bear, Greg. Eon. New York: Bluejay, 1985. Benford, Gregory. Timescape. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. Benoist, Elizabeth. Doomsday Clock. San Antonio, TX: Naylor Company, 1975. Blish, James. “We All Die Naked.” In Three for Tomorrow: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg, 153–­204. New York: Meredith, 1969. Blish, James, and Norman L. Knight. A Torrent of Faces. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967. Bova, Ben. “Nuclear Autumn.” In There Will Be War, vol. 8, Armageddon, ed. Jerry E. Pournelle, 204–­209. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989. ———. Peacekeepers. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1988. Boyle, T. Coraghessan. “After the Plague.” In After the Plague and Other Stories, 281–­303. New York: Viking, 2001. ———. A Friend of the Earth. New York: Viking, 2000. Bradbury, Ray. “The Highway.” In The Illustrated Man, 39–­42. Grand Masters ed. New York: Bantam, 1967. ———. The Martian Chronicles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1958. ———. “The Other Foot.” In The Illustrated Man, 27–­38. Grand Masters ed. New York: Bantam, 1967. Bradley, Will. Ark Liberty. New York: Penguin, 1992. Brin, David. Earth. New York: Bantam, 1990. ———. The Postman. New York: Bantam, 1985. Brown, Jerry Earl. Earthfall. New York: Ace, 1990. Brynner, Rock. The Doomsday Report. New York: William Morrow, 1998. Bulwer-­Lytton, Edward. The Coming Race. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005. Burdick, Eugene, and Harvey Wheeler. Fail-­Safe. New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1962. Byron, George Gordon (Lord). “Darkness.” In Selected Poetry, ed. Jerome J. McGann, 72–­74. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

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Callenbach, Ernest. “Chocco.” In Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, ed. Kim Stanley Robinson, 189–­214. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994. ———. Ecotopia Emerging. Berkeley, CA: Banyan Tree, 1981. Campbell, Thomas. “The Last Man.” In The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, 167–­169. New York: S. and D. A. Forbes, 1830. Cantrell, Christian. Containment. Seattle, WA: 47th North, 2012. Card, Orson Scott. The Folk of the Fringe. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989. Cave, Hugh B. The Dawning. New York: Leisure, 2000. Clark, Walter van Tilburg. “The Portable Phonograph.” In Bangs and Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World, ed. James Frenkel, 149–­156. Chicago: Lowell House, 1999. Clarkson, Helen. “The Last Day.” In New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow, ed. Jean Marie Stine, Janrae Frank, and Forrest J. Ackerman, 151–­ 156. Stamford, CT: Longmeadow, 1995. Cool, Tom. Infectress. New York: Baen, 1997. Dahl, Roald. Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen. London: Collins, 1949. Datlow, Ellen, and Terri Windling, eds. After (Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia). New York: Disney Hyperion, 2012. De Camp, L. Sprague. “Judgment Day.” In The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, 208–­226. Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1978. de Grainville, Jean-­Baptiste François Xavier Cousin. The Last Man. Trans. I. F. and M. Clarke. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2002. Dick, Philip K. Dr. Bloodmoney, or, How We Got Along After the Bomb. New York: Ace, 1965. ———. The Penultimate Truth. New York: Leisure, 1954. ———. “Planet for Transients.” In A Handful of Darkness, 46–­60. London: Rich and Cowan, 1950. Reprint, London: Panther, 1980. ———. The Unteleported Man. New York: Berkley, 1966. ———. The Zap Gun. New York: Dell, 1965. Dickson, Gordon R. “Introduction: On Saving the World.” In The Ruins of the Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future, ed. Thomas M. Disch, 1–­20. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971. ———. The Pritcher Mass. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972. Donnelly, Ignatius. Caesar’s Column. Ed. Walter B. Rideout. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960. Dooner, Pierton W. The Last Days of the Republic. San Francisco: Alta California, 1880. Reprint, New York: Arno, 1978. Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Poison Belt. New York: Macmillan, 1913. Edwards, Paul. “Primum Non Nocere.” In After Armageddon, vol. 9, There Will Be War, ed. Jerry E. Pournelle, 160–­174. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989. Effinger, George Alec. “Wednesday, November 15, 1967.” In The Ruins of the Earth: An Anthology of Stories of the Immediate Future, ed. Thomas M. Disch, 123–­136. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971. Ellis, Edward. The Huge Hunter; or The Steam Man of the Prairies. London: Echo Library, 2007. Ellison, Harlan. “A Boy and His Dog.” In Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-­One Sermons to the Dead, ed. Walter M. Miller Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg, 332–­373. New York: D. I. Fine, 1985. ———. “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.” In I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, loc. 169–­404. New York: Open Road Media, 2014.

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Engel, Leonard, and Emanuel Piller. World Aflame: The Russian-­American War of 1950. New York: Dial, 1947. Flammarion, Camille. Omega: The Last Days of the World. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1894. Reprint, New York: Arno, 1975. Forstchen, William. One Second After. New York: Forge, 2011. Frank, Pat. Alas, Babylon. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1959. Froese, Robert. The Hour of Blue. Unity, ME: North Country, 1990. Gelder, Gordon van, ed. Welcome to the Greenhouse: New Science Fiction on Climate Change. New York: OR Books, 2011. Glaser, Alice. “The Tunnel Ahead.” In As Tomorrow Becomes Today, ed. Charles William Sullivan, 445–­452. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1974. Godwin, Tom. “You Created Us.” In Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels 1956, ed. T. E. Dikty, 79–­89. New York: F. Fell, 1956. Grimwood, Ken. Into the Deep. New York: William Morrow, 1995. Guran, Paula, ed. After the End: Recent Apocalypses. Germantown, MD: Prime, 2013. Hamilton, Edmond. “Day of Judgment.” In The Last Man on Earth, ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, 273–­288. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1982. Harrison, Harry. “Afterword: The End of War.” In There Won’t Be War, ed. Harry Harrison and Bruce McAllister, 302–­309. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991. ———. Make Room! Make Room! New York: Doubleday, 1966. Reprint, Boston: Gregg, 1979. Heinlein, Robert. “Blowups Happen.” In The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology, ed. John W. Campbell Jr., 1–­42. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952. ———. Farnham’s Freehold. New York: Baen, 2001.Herbert, Frank. The Green Brain. Thetford, UK: Thetford, 1966. Herzog, Arthur. Heat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977. Hewson, David. Solstice. New York: Warner, 1999. Houston, Teretha G. Armageddon at Defcon 1. Stone Mountain, GA: Tyger, 1999. Howey, Hugh. Third Shift—​­Pact. Part 8 of the Silo Series. Self-­published, 2013. Huxley, Aldous. Ape and Essence. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1948. Ing, Dean. Systemic Shock. New York: Tor, 1992. James, Dakota. Greenhouse. New York: D. I. Fine, 1984. ———. Milwaukee the Beautiful. New York: D. I. Fine, 1986. Jenkins, Will F. The Murder of the U.S.A. Kingston, NY: Quinn, 1947. Kahn, James. World Enough, and Time. New York: Ballantine, 1982. Kessel, John. Good News from Outer Space. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1989. King, Stephen. The Stand. New York: Anchor, 2008. Kirts, Keith. The Devil’s Drainpipe: A Nuclear Waste Comedy. Santa Monica, CA: Synapse—​ ­Centurion, 1993. Knight, Damon. “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?” In Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, 340–­ 343. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002. Knight, Stephen. Earthfall. Self-­published, 2013. Kosko, Bart. Nanotime. New York: Avon, 1997. Kress, Nancy. After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall: A Novel. Kalispell, MT: Tachyon Production Studios, 2013. ———. “By Fools Like Me.” In Fountain of Age: Stories, 96–­109. Northampton, MA: Small Beer, 2012.

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———. Maximum Light. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1998 Kunstler, James Howard. The World Made by Hand: A Novel. New York: Grove, 2009. Le Guin, Ursula K. Always Coming Home. New York: Harper and Row, 1985. ———. “Newton’s Sleep.” In Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias, ed. Kim Stanley Robinson, 311–­338. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1994. Lightner, A. M. The Day of the Drones. New York: Bantam, 1970. Ljoka, Dan. Shelter. New York: Manor, 1977. London, Jack. “The Yellow Peril.” In Revolution and Other Essays, 267–­290. New York: Macmillan, 1910. MacDonald, John D. “A Child Is Crying.” In The Science Fiction Galaxy, ed. Groff Conklin, 115–­ 130. New York: Permabooks, 1950. Maclay, John. Introduction to Nukes: Four Horror Writers on the Ultimate Horror, ed. John Maclay, 7–­8. Baltimore: Maclay and Associates, 1986. MacLeod, Ken. The Cassini Division. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1998. Mayhar, Ardath. The World Ends in Hickory Hollow. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985. Manning, Laurence. The Man Who Awoke. New York: Ballantine, 1979. McAllister, Bruce. Introduction to There Won’t Be War, ed. Harry Harrison and Bruce McAllister, 1–­6. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991. McCammon, Robert. Swan Song. New York: Pocket, 1987. McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. New York: Knopf, 2006. McDevitt, Jack. Eternity Road. New York: HarperPrism, 1998. McHugh, Maureen F. After the Apocalypse. Northampton, MA: Small Beer, 2011. Merril, Judith. Shadow on the Hearth. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1950. ———. “That Only a Mother.” In Countdown to Midnight: Twelve Great Stories About Nuclear War, ed. H. Bruce Franklin, 76–­87. New York: Daw, 1984. Miller, Walter M., Jr. A Canticle for Leibowitz. New York: Bantam, 1997. Mills, John. “The Aerial Brick Field.” In Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction, 1895–­ 1905, ed. Hilary and Dik Evans, 46–­50. London: Frederick Muller, 1976. Mitchell, John Ames. The Last American. New York: F. A. Stokes, 1902. Reprint, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Literature House, 1970. Modesitt, Leland E., Jr. Dawn for a Distant Earth. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1987. Moore, Donald L. Mirrors of the Apocalypse. Nashville, TN: Charter House, 1978. Moore, Ward. Greener Than You Think. Vol. 10 of Classics of Modern Science Fiction. New York: Crown, 1985. ———. “Lot.” In Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-­One Sermons to the Dead, ed. Walter M. Miller Jr. and Martin H. Greenberg, 70–­96. New York: D. I. Fine, 1985. Morrow, James. This Is the Way the World Ends. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995. Niven, Larry, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn. Fallen Angels. Riverdale, NY: Baen, 1991. O’Keefe, Claudia. Black Snow Days. New York: Ace, 1990. Oliver, Chad. “King of the Hill.” In Again, Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison, 183–­201. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972. O’Neil, Dennis. “Noonday Devil.” In Saving Worlds: A Collection of Original Science Fiction Stories, ed. Roger Elwood and Virginia Kidd, 105–­115. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973. Padgett, Lewis. Mutant. New York: Gnome, 1953. Palmer, David R. “Emergence.” In Children of the Future, ed. Isaac Asimov and Martin Harry Greenberg, 251–­288. Milwaukee, WI: Raintree, 1984.

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Pangborn, Edgar. Davy. New York: Ballantine, 1973. Pellegrino, Charles. Dust. New York: Avon, 1999. Piercy, Marge. He, She and It. New York: Knopf, 1991. ———. Woman on the Edge of Time. New York: Ballantine, 1987. Porges, Arthur. “The Rats.” In The Best Science Fiction Stories: 1952, ed. Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty, 225–­234. New York: F. Fell, 1952. Pournelle, Jerry. “After Armageddon: New Beginnings.” In After Armageddon, vol. 9, There Will Be War, ed. Jerry Pournelle, 1-­11. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1990. Ready, Kevin E. Gaia Weeps: The Crisis of Global Warming. Prescott, AZ: Saint Gaudens, 1998. Reed, Robert. “Pallbearer.” In The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF, ed. Mike Ashley, loc. 4299–­ 8327. Dubois, PA: Mammoth, 2010. Rhinehart, Luke. Long Voyage Back. New York: Delacorte, 1983. Robinson, Frank M. “East Wind, West Wind.” In No Room for Man: Population and the Future Through Science Fiction, ed. Ralph S. Clem, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, 164–­190. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, 1979. Robinson, Kim Stanley. Antarctica. New York: Bantam, 1998. ———. The Wild Shore. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1995. Rodgers, Alan. Fire. New York: Bantam, 1990. Roshwald, Mordecai. Level 7. New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1959. St. Clair, Margaret. “Quis Custodiet . . .” In The Science Fiction Galaxy, ed. Groff Conklin, 131–­ 143. New York: Permabooks, 1950. Sawyer, Robert J. WWW: Wonder. New York: Ace, 2012. Scarborough, Elizabeth Ann. Nothing Sacred. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Schenck, Hilbert. A Rose for Armageddon. New York: Pocket, 1982. Serviss, Garrett P. Edison’s Conquest of Mars. Rockville, MD: Wildside, 2006. Shedley, Ethan I. Earth Ship and Star Song. New York: Viking, 1979. Shelley, Mary. The Last Man. Ed. Hugh J. Luke Jr. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965. Shiel, Matthew Phipps. The Purple Cloud. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000. ———. The Yellow Danger. London: Grant Richards, 1898. Shute, Nevil. On the Beach. New York: William Morrow, 1957. Silverberg, Robert. Hot Sky at Midnight. New York: Bantam, 1994. ———. To Open the Sky. Boston: Gregg, 1967. ———. Tom O’Bedlam. New York: D. I. Fine, 1985. Slattery, Brian Francis. Lost Everything. New York: Tor, 2012. Spinrad, Norman. Deus X. New York: Bantam, 1993. ———. Songs from the Stars. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980. Stadler, John. Preface to Eco-­Fiction, ed. John Stadler. New York: Washington Square Press, 1971. Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. New York: Bantam, 2003. Sterling, Bruce. Distraction. New York: Bantam, 1998. ———. Heavy Weather. New York: Bantam, 1994. Strieber, Whitley, and James Kunetka. Nature’s End: The Consequences of the Twentieth Century. New York: Warner, 1986. ———. Warday and the Journey Onward. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984. Sturgeon, Theodore. “Thunder and Roses.” In Nuclear War, ed. Gregory Benford and Martin Harry Greenberg, 25–­48. New York: Ace, 1988.

246 Selected Bibliography

Szilard, Leo. “Report on the Grand Central Terminal.” In The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories, 155–­122. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1961. Tepper, Sheri S. The Gate to Women’s Country. New York: Bantam, 1988. Tevis, Walter. The Steps of the Sun. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983. Theroux, Paul. O-­Zone. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986. Tobias, Michael. Voice of the Planet. New York: Bantam, 1990. Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991. Varley, John. Slow Apocalypse. New York: Ace, 2012. Verne, Jules. Around the World in 80 Days. New York: Airmont, 1963. ———. Five Weeks in a Balloon; Or Journeys and Discoveries in Africa by Three Englishmen. Trans. William Lackland. New York: Hurst, 1869. Reprint, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004. Vinge, Vernor. A Deepness in the Sky. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1999. ———. Fire Upon the Deep. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1992. Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s Cradle. New York: Delta Trade, 1998. ———. “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” In Eco-­Fiction, ed. John Stadler, 119–­133. New York: Washington Square, 1971. Wallis, George C. “The Last Days of Earth.” In Beyond the Gaslight: Science in Popular Fiction, 1895–­1905, ed. Hilary and Dik Evans, 146–­151. London: Frederick Muller, 1976. Watkins, William Jon, and E. V. Snyder. Ecodeath. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972. Weisberg, Barry. Beyond Repair. Boston: Beacon, 1971. Wells, H. G. “The Man of the Year Million.” In H. G. Wells: Journalism and Prophecy, 1893–­1946, ed. W. Warren Wagar, 3–­8. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964. ———. The Time Machine. New York: Bantam, 1982. ———. The War of the Worlds. Mahwah, NJ: Watermill, 1980. ———. The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1914. Wilson, Daniel H. Robopocalypse: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2011. Wilson, Robert Charles. Burning Paradise. New York: Tor, 2014. ———. Spin. New York: Tor, 2006. Winters, Ben H. The Last Policeman: A Novel. Philadelphia: Quirk, 2013. Wylie, Philip. “Blunder.” In Strange Ports of Call, ed. August William Derleth, 371–­380. New York: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1948. ———. The Disappearance. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. ———. The End of the Dream. New York: Daw, 1973. ———. Tomorrow! New York: Rinehart and Company, 1954. ———. Triumph. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963. Wylie, Philip, and Edwin Balmer. When Worlds Collide. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. general and scientific nonfiction Asimov, Isaac, and Frederik Pohl. Our Angry Earth. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1991. Ayres, Ed. God’s Last Offer: Negotiating for a Sustainable Future. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1999. Bernarde, Melvin A. Our Precarious Habitat. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. Bradley, David. No Place to Hide. Boston: Little, Brown, 1948. Bryson, Reid A., and Thomas J. Murray. Climates of Hunger: Mankind and the World’s Changing Weather. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977.

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Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Challinor, David. Epilogue to Biodiversity, ed. E. O. Wilson, 493–­496. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988. Clayton, Bruce D. Life After Doomsday: A Survivalist Guide to Nuclear War and Other Major Disasters. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Dial, 1981. Coblentz, Stanton Arthur. The Decline of Man. New York: Minton, Balch, and Company, 1925. Colborn, Theo, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival?—​­A Scientific Detective Story. New York: Plume, 1997. Commoner, Barry. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology. New York: Knopf, 1971. ———. Science and Survival. New York: Viking, 1966. Dennis, Geoffrey Pomeroy. The End of the World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1930. Diamond, Jared. The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. Efron, Edith. The Apocalyptics: Cancer and the Big Lie; How Environmental Politics Controls What We Know About Cancer. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. Ehrenfeld, David. Beginning Again: People and Nature in the New Millennium. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Ehrlich, Paul. The Population Bomb. New York: Ballantine, 1970. Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Ehrlich. Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis. Reading, MA: Addison-­Wesley, 1991. ———. The Population Explosion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Ehrlich, Paul, and Robert Ornstein. New World, New Mind: Moving Toward Conscious Human Evolution. New York: Doubleday, 1989. ———. How to Survive the H-­Bomb . . . ​and Why. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1962. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Avon, 1998. Gelbspan, Ross. The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-­up, the Prescription. Updated ed. New York: Basic Books, 1998. Gleiser, Marcelo. The Prophet and the Astronomer: A Scientific Journey to the End of Time. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002. Gore, Albert. Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. Haldane, J. B. S. The Last Judgment: A Scientist’s Vision of the Future of Man. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927. Hansen, James. Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009. Hardin, Garrett. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, no. 3859 (13 December 1968): 1243–­1248. Heinlein, Robert. “Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues.” In The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism, 17–­63. Chicago: Advent, 1964. Helvarg, Dave. The War Against the Greens: The “Wise-­Use” Movement, the New Right, and the Browning of America. Madison, WI: Big Earth, 2004. Hertsgaard, Mark. Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future. New York: Broadway, 1998. Horgan, John. The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age. New York: Broadway, 1996.

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Huxley, Julian. Evolution: The Modern Synthesis. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1942. Kahn, Herman. On Escalation: Metaphors and Scenarios. Washington, DC: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965. Kapp, K. William. The Social Costs of Private Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950. Kennedy, Robert Francis. Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Kerasote, Ted. Return of the Wild: The Future of Our Natural Lands. Washington, DC: Island, 2001. Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Henry Holt, 2014. Kötke, Wm. H. The Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. Portland, OR: Arrow Point, 1993. Lapp, R. E. Must We Hide? Cambridge, MA: Addison-­Wesley, 1949. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation. New York: Ballantine, 1970. Lovelock, James. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Reissued ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Marsh, George Perkins. Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action. New York: C. Scribner, 1864. Masters, Dexter, and Katherine Way, eds. One World or None. New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1946. McCabe, Joseph. The End of the World. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1920. McKibben, Bill. Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. New York: Macmillan, 2010. ———. The End of Nature. New York: Random House, 1989. Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, and Jørgen Randers. Beyond the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future. Post Mills, VT: Chelsea Green, 1992. Mills, Stephanie. In Service of the Wild: Restoring and Reinhabiting Damaged Land. Boston: Beacon, 1995. Moore, Nathan Grier. Man and His Manor: The Past and Future of Earth and Man as Deduced from Accepted Modern Science. Chicago: Privately printed, 1934. Musil, Bob. “Focus on Health.” In Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement, ed. Jonathan Isham and Sissel Waage, 105–­118. Washington, DC: Island, 2007. Naess, Arne. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle. Trans. and ed. David Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Osborn, Fairfield. The Limits of the Earth. Boston: Little, Brown, 1953. ———. Our Plundered Planet. Boston: Little, Brown, 1948. Papp, Desiderius. Creation’s Doom. New York: D. Appleton-­Century, 1934. Pauling, Linus. No More War! New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1958. Ponte, Lowell. The Cooling. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1976. Sagan, Carl. “The Atmospheric and Climatic Consequences of Nuclear War.” In The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War: The Conference on the Long-­Term Worldwide Biological Consequences of Nuclear War, by Paul R. Ehrlich, Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr Roberts, 1–­40. New York: W. W. Norton, 1984. St. Clair, Jeffrey. Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green to Me: The Politics of Nature. Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 2004. Sale, Kirkpatrick. Dwellers in the Land. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1985.

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Schell, Jonathan. The Fate of the Earth. New York: Avon, 1982. ———. The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons. New York: Metropolitan, 1998. Schneider, Stephen H. The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival. New York: Plenum, 1976. ———. Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1989. Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate. Man and the Earth. New York: Fox, Duffield and Company, 1905. Solomon, Lawrence. The Deniers: The World-­Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud. Minneapolis, MN: Richard Vigilante, 2008. U.S. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Briefing by the Secretary of the Interior. (HRG-­1981-­IIA-­0001; date: 5 February 1981.) LexisNexis @ Congressional Hearings Digital Collection (accessed 3 January 2009). Vogt, William. Road to Survival. New York: William Sloane, 1948. White, Lynn Townsend, Jr. “The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis.” Science 155, no. 3767 (10 March 1967): 1203–­1207. Wilson, E. O. “The Current State of Biological Diversity.” In Biodiversity, ed. E. O. Wilson, 3–­20. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988. ———. “Is Humanity Suicidal?” In In Search of Nature, 181–­200. Washington, DC: Island, 1997. audio and film Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2010. DVD. The Book of Eli. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2010. DVD. “A Clean Escape.” In Masters of Science Fiction, hosted by Stephen Hawking. Beverly Hills, CA: Anchor Bay, 2008. DVD. The Day After. Directed by Nicholas Meyer. Hollywood, CA: ABC Circle Films, 1983. VHS. “Day After: Perils of Nuclear War.” New York: ABC News Special Presentation, 1991. VHS. The Day the Earth Stood Still. Directed by Robert Wise. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, 2003. DVD. Fringe: Season 4. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2012. DVD. Glen and Randa. Directed by Jim McBride. Jacksonville, FL: Universal Marion Corporation, 1971. Video recording. Interstellar. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2015. Digital video recording. Miracle Mile. Directed by Steve de Jarnatt. New York: HBO Home Video, 1995. VHS. On the Beach. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Beverly Hills, CA: MGM, 2000. Digital video recording. Panic in the Year Zero. Directed by Ray Milland. Los Angeles: American International Pictures, 1962. Video recording. Soylent Green. Directed by Richard Fleischer. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2008. DVD. “Technical Demonstration/Incident of the Cosmos.” Columbia Workshop. New York: CBS (16 January 1937). Audiorecording available at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. Catalog ID R76:0200. Testament. Directed by Lynne Littman. Hollywood, CA: Paramount Pictures, 1984. VHS. This Is the End. Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2013. Digital video recording. Without Warning. Directed by Robert Iscove. Mount Royal, Quebec: Madacy Records, 2008.

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Secondary Sources Adler, Robert. Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation. New York: John Riley, 2002. Aldiss, Brian, with David Wingrove. Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. New York: Atheneum, 1986. Allitt, Patrick N. Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism. New York: Penguin, 2014. Barkun, Michael. “Divided Apocalypse: Thinking About the End in Contemporary America.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 66, no. 3 (Fall 1983): 257–­280. Barton, Gregory. Empire Forestry and the Origins of Environmentalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Barzun, Jacques. Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. Bauer, Henry H. Scientific Literacy and the Myth of the Scientific Method. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. Bebbington, David. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. New York: Routledge, 1989. Benton, Lisa M., and John Rennie Short. Environmental Discourse and Practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-­Blackwell, 1999. Bowler, Peter J. “The Changing Meaning of Evolution.” Journal of the History of Ideas 36, no. 1 (January–­March 1975): 95–­114. ———. The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-­Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900. 3d ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. ———. Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3d ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Boyer, Paul S. By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon, 1985. ———. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Bray, Gerald. “English Protestantism to the Present Day.” In The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, ed. Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks, 96–­108. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Brians, Paul. Nuclear Holocausts: Atomic War in Fiction. 27 January 2003. Accessed 12 July 2007. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/nuclear/index.htm. Brooke, James Hedley. Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Brush, Steven G. Making 20th-­Century Science: How Theories Became Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Cagin, Seth, and Philip Dray. Between Earth and Sky: How CFCs Changed Our World and Endangered the Ozone Layer. New York: Pantheon, 1993. Carpenter, Joel A. “The Scope of American Evangelicalism: Some Comments on the Dayton-­ Marsden Exchange.” Christian Scholar’s Review 23, no. 1 (1992): 53–­61. Cheney, Margaret. Tesla: Man Out of Time. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-­Hall, 1981. Clarke, Peter. The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010. Dayton, Donald W., and Robert K. Johnston, eds. The Variety of American Evangelicalism. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991.

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Disch, Thomas. The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. New York: Free Press, 1998. Dunlap, Riley E. “Trends in Public Opinion Toward Environmental Issues: 1965–­1990.” In American Environmentalism: The U.S. Environmental Movement, 1970–­1990, ed. Riley E. Dunlap and Angela G. Mertig, 89–­113. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis, 1992. Ferrell, Robert H., ed. Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman. New York: Harper and Row, 1980. Frank, Adam. The Constant Fire: Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Franklin, H. Bruce. “Nuclear War and Science Fiction.” In Countdown to Midnight: Twelve Great Stories About Nuclear War, ed. H. Bruce Franklin, 11–­28. New York: Daw, 1984. ———. War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Frykholm, Amy. Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Fuller, Steve. Science vs. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. Malden, MA: Polity, 2007. Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Gauch, Hugh G., Jr. Scientific Method in Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Giberson, Karl, and Donald A. Yerxa. Species of Origins: America’s Search for a Creation Story. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Gilbert, James. Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Gilley, Sheridan, and Ann Loades. “Thomas Henry Huxley: The War Between Science and Religion.” Journal of Religion 61, no. 3 (July 1981): 302. http://www.jstor.org (accessed 14 February 2006). Gottlieb, Robert. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington, DC: Island, 1993. Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York: Ballantine, 1999. Gribben, Crawford. Evangelical Millennialism in the Trans-­Atlantic World, 1500–­2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. ———. Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Halsell, Grace. Forcing God’s Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture—​­and Destruction of Planet Earth. Washington, DC: Crossroads International, 1999. ———. Prophecy and Politics: Militant Evangelicals on the Road to Nuclear War. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1986. Harris, C. Leon. Evolution, Genesis and Revelations, with Readings from Empedocles to Wilson. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Harris, Harriet. Fundamentalism and Evangelicals. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. Harrison, Peter. The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Hart, D. G. “Evangelicals, Biblical Scholarship, and the Politics of the Modern American Academy.” In Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, ed. David N. Livingstone, D. G. Hart, and Mark A. Noll, 306–­328. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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Hartman, Andrew. A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. Tenth anniversary ed. New York: Bantam, 1998. Hays, Samuel P. Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955–­1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. ———. Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–­1920. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Hefner, Philip. “The Science-­Religion Relation: Controversy, Convergence, and Search for Meaning.” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion 7, no. 3 (1997): 143–­158. Hilsman, Roger. From Nuclear Military Strategy to a World Without War: A History and a Proposal. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. Hirschbein, Ron. “Peace on Earth Without Goodwill Toward Men: Nuclear Weapons and American Millenarian Aspirations.” In The Writing on the Cloud: American Culture Confronts the Atomic Bomb, ed. Alison M. Scott and Christopher D. Geist, 174–­182. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997. Hocking, David. The Coming World Leader: Understanding the Book of Revelation. Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1988. Jaher, Frederic Cople. Doubters and Dissenters: Cataclysmic Thought in America, 1885–­1918. New York: Collier-­Macmillan, 1964. James, Edward. Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Jastrow, Robert. God and the Astronomers. New York: W. W. Norton, 1978. Johnson, Robert K. Introduction to The Use of the Bible in Theology/Evangelical Options, ed. Robert K. Johnson, 1–­17. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985. Kaku, Michio, and Daniel Axelrod. To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon’s Secret War Plans. Boston: South End, 1987. Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Ketterer, David. New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974. Kingsland, Sharon. “Evolution and Debates over Human Progress from Darwin to Sociobiology.” Population and Development Review 14, Supplement: Population and Resources in Western Intellectual Traditions (1988): 167–­198. Kline, Benjamin. First Along the River: A Brief History of the U.S. Environmental Movement. 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Kwa, Chunglin. Styles of Knowing: A New History of Science from Ancient Times to the Present. Trans. David McKay. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011. Kyle, Richard G. The Last Days Are Here Again: A History of the End Times. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998. Landes, Richard. “Millenarianism and the Dynamics of Apocalyptic Time.” In Expecting the End: Millennialism in Social and Historical Context, ed. Kenneth G. C. Newport and Crawford Gibben, 1–­24. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006. Landon, Brooks. Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars. New York: Twayne, 1997.

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Larson, Edward J. Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory. New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2004. ———. Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Lee, Martha F. Earth First! Environmental Apocalypse. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995. Lewis, Chris H. “Science, Progress, and the End of the Modern World.” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 75, nos. 2–­3 (Summer/Fall 1992): 307–­332. Lewis, Michael L. “From Science to Science Fiction: Leo Szilard and Fictional Persuasion.” In The Writing on the Cloud: American Culture Confronts the Atomic Bomb, ed. Alison M. Scott and Christopher D. Geist, 95–­105. Lanham, MD: University of Press of America, 1997. Lightman, Alan. The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science. New York: Pantheon, 2005. Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion After September 11. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Lindberg, David C., and Ronald Numbers. “Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter Between Christianity and Science.” Church History 55 (1986): 338–­354. Longley, Kyle, et al. Deconstructing Reagan: Conservative Mythology and America’s Fortieth President. New York: Routledge, 2015. Maland, Charles. “Dr. Strangelove (1964): Nightmare Comedy and the Ideology of Liberal Consensus.” American Quarterly 31, no. 5 (Winter 1979): 697–­717. Marsden, George M., ed. Evangelicalism and Modern America. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1984. ———. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-­Century Evangelicalism, 1870–­1925. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ———. “Fundamentalism as an American Phenomenon: A Comparison with English Evangelicalism.” Church History 46, no. 2 (January 1977): 215–­232. ———. Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdsman, 1991. May, Henry F. The Discontent of Intellectuals: A Problem of the Twenties. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963. ———. The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Times, 1912–­1917. New York: Knopf, 1959. May, John R. Toward a New Earth: Apocalypse in the American Novel. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972. Mayr, Ernst. The Growth of Biological Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1982. ———. “The Ideological Resistance to Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 135, no. 2 (June 1991): 123–­139. ———. One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. ———. “Prologue: Some Thoughts on the History of the Evolutionary Synthesis.” In The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, ed. Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine, 1–­48. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980. McGinn, Bernard. “Revelation.” In The Literary Guide to the Bible, ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, 523–­544. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.

254 Selected Bibliography

McMullen, Josh. Under the Big Top: Big Tent Revivalism and American Culture, 1885–­1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Meine, Curt D. “Moving Mountains: Aldo Leopold and ‘A Sand County Almanac.’ ” Wildlife Society Bulletin 25, no. 4 (Winter 1998): 697–­706. Michelmore, Peter. The Swift Years: The Robert Oppenheimer Story. New York: Dodd Mead, 1969. Miller, Perry. “The End of the World.” In Errand into the Wilderness, 217–­240. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1956. Morris, Edmund. Dutch. New York: Random House, 1999. Numbers, Ronald L. Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. ———. “Science and Religion.” Osiris 1, 2d. ser. (1985): 59-­80. Numbers, Ronald L., and Kostas Kampourakis, eds. Newton’s Apple and Other Myths About Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Oakley, J. Ronald. God’s Country: America in the Fifties. New York: Dembner, 1986. Olstead, Kathryn. Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War 1 to 9/11. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Paley, Morton D. Apocalypse and Millennium in English Romantic Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999. Pfaelzer, Jean. The Utopian Novel in America, 1886–­1896: The Politics of Form. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984. Pike, Sarah M. New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. Pinnock, Clark H. “New Dimensions in Theological Method.” In New Dimensions in Evangelical Thought: Essays in Honor of Millard J. Erickson, ed. David S. Dockery, 197–­208. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 1998. Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. ———. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988. Ross, Andrew. Strange Weather: Culture, Science, and Technology in the Age of Limits. New York: Verso, 1991. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-­Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Random House, 1995. Sale, Kirkpatrick. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement, 1962–­1992. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Sandeen, Ernest R. The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800–­ 1930. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1978. Sankey, Howard. “Methodological Pluralism, Normative Naturalism and the Realist Aim of Science.” In After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method, ed. Robert Nola and Howard Sankey, 211–­230. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2000. Shabecoff, Philip. A Fierce Green Fire: The American Environmental Movement. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Shermer, Michael. Why Darwin Matters: The Science of Good and Evil. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Steinberg, Ted. Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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Sweeney, Douglas. “Historiographical Dialectics: On Marsden, Dayton, and the Inner Logic of Evangelical History.” Christian Scholar’s Review 23, no. 1 (1992): 48–­52. Takaki, Ronald. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. ———. Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth-­Century America. New York: Random House, 1979. Thurs, Daniel Patrick. Science Talk: Changing Notions of Science in American Popular Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007. Toumey, Christopher P. “Modern Creationism and Scientific Authority.” Social Studies of Science 21, no. 4 (November 1991): 681–­699. Troy, Gil. Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Veldman, Meredith. Fantasy, the Bomb, and the Greening of Britain: Romantic Protest, 1945–­ 1980. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Wacker, Grant. America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. ———. Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Wagar, W. Warren. Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Weart, Spencer R. The Discovery of Global Warming. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. ———. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Weber, Eugen. Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults, and Millennial Beliefs Through the Ages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Weber, Max. The Sociology of Religion. Introduction by Talcott Parsons, and new foreword by Ann Swidler. Boston: Beacon, 1993. Weber, Timothy P. Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875–­1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. ———. On the Road to Armageddon. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004. Wilkinson, Paul Richard. For Zion’s Sake: Christian Zionism and the Role of John Nelson Darby. Colorado Springs, CO: Paternoster, 2007. Williams, Paul. Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear Weapons and Post-­ Apocalyptic Worlds. Liverpool, UK: University of Liverpool, 2011. Wojcik, Daniel. The End of the World as We Know It: Faith, Fatalism, and Apocalypse in America. New York: New York University Press, 1997. Worster, Donald. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. ———. Nature’s Economy: The Roots of Ecology. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1977.

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Index

2 Peter (book of the Bible), 45, 47–­48, 50; and the Bomb, 76, 78, 83, 85, 185–­86, 191 2012 apocalypse. See Mayan prophecy 9/11: in Bible prophecy, 164, 168, 182–­85, 189; conspiracy theories, 149–­50; effects of, x, xiv, 141, 156, 166–­69, 176, 179–­81 acid rain, 121, 133, 140 Adams, Henry, 30 African-­American evangelicalism, 41, 186–­87 age of the earth, 3–­4, 6, 14, 29, 112 Alas, Babylon, 70–­71 aliens: in Bible prophecy, 139–­40, 161; colonization, 103; first contact, 124; as human saviors, 65, 123, 181; on Mars, 31–­33, 61–­62; and species replacement, 30. See also end of the world American Indians. See Native Americans amillennialism, 38 Anderson, Poul, 126 animism, 136 Ankerberg, John, 157–­58 Anthony, Piers, 73 antiballistic missile (ABM) system, 116, 156 antichrist: and aliens, 139–­40, 161, 192; and Communism, 79–­80; and culture wars, 157; and environmentalism 137, 146, 158, 163–­64, 190–­91; identity of, 49, 76, 130, 141, 168, 183–­84, 187, 189, 192; and the New Age Movement, 136, 161; and nuclear issues, 50, 77, 79, 82–­85, 131, 195; overpopulation, 110; role of, ix, 13, 80, 82, 84–­85, 109, 131

anti-­evolution laws, 48–­49 anti-­Semitism, 27 apocalypse. See dispensational premillennialism; end of the world; scientific apocalypse; secular apocalypse Apollo missions. See moon landings Armageddon, battle of, x, 53, 77, 79, 82–­85, 116, 157–­58, 183 Armageddon (film), 154 Armageddon theology, 128–­29, 131 Armstrong, Michael, 118, 123 artificial intelligence (AI), x, 153, 169, 181 Ashburn, Steve, 189–­90 atheism, 2–­3, 6, 11, 49 atomic bomb. See hydrogen bomb; Manhattan Project; nuclear fission; nuclear war atomic culture, 60, 74–­75 Ayres, Ed, 144, 149 Balmer, Edwin, 39 Battlestar Galactica (2004), 178–­79 BeauSeigneur, James, 161 Benét, Stephen Vincent, 40–­41 Bernarde, Melvin A., 98–­99 Bethe, Hans, 59 Bible prophecy. See dispensational premillennialism; futurist premillennialism; historicist premillennialism Bikini Atoll, 60, 66, 68 biodiversity, 121, 159 Birth of a Nation, The (1915), 36 Bloomfield, Arthur, 84–­85 bomb shelters, 68, 73, 80, 82, 117 Bortolazzo, Paul, 186–­88

258 Index

Boyle, T. Coraghesson, 151–­52 Bradbury, Ray, 61–­62, 65, 73, 182 Brodie, Bernard, 71–­72 Brunner, John, 104 Bryan, William Jennings, 6–­7, 48–­49 Bulwer-­Lytton, Edward, 23–­24, 33, 37 Bush, George W., 167–­70, 174, 176 Cahn, Jonathan, 184–­85, 192 Camping, Harold, 174 Cantelon, Willard, 108 Carson, Rachel, 93–­95, 99, 101–­2, 103, 120, 122 Carter, Jimmy, 86, 116, 127 Cash, Jonathan, 161 Catholicism, 49, 76, 159, 168, 192 Catlin, George, 89 Chambers, Robert, 2–­3 Chambers, Robert W., 11–­12 charismatic Christianity, 17, 51–­52, 187–­88, 191 chiliasm. See premillennialism chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 97, 120 civil defense, 82, 84. See also bomb shelters civil rights, 8, 20, 41, 81 Civil War (U.S.), xiv, 11, 19–­20, 37–­38, 55 Clausius, Rudolf, 4 Clayton, Bruce, 117–­18 climate change: in Bible prophecy, 108, 163, 191–­92; global cooling, 97–­98; global warming, 98, 114, 121–­23, 143, 146, 152, 168–­72 Coblentz, Arthur, 38–­39 Cohen, Gary G., 85, 109 Cold War: arms race, 68–­71, 79, 81, 132; causes, 76; effects, 63–­64, 96, 163; end of, x, 130, 140, 142–­43, 156–­58; and nuclear anxiety, xv, 53, 68, 94, 176, 182–­83 colonialism, 22–­26 colonization, of other planets, 31–­32, 34, 40, 48, 103–­4, 110, 125 commonsense realism, 15 communism: in Bible prophecy, 49, 76, 78–­79, 86, 132, 163, 183; in politics, 67, 74, 115 Commoner, Barry, 94, 99–­100 Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, A, 26–­27 conservationism, 89–­92 Cook, Robert A., 81

Copenhagen climate summit (2009), 171 cosmology, 28–­29, 31 counterculture, 75, 96 creation science. See creationism; Institute of Creation Research creationism, 3–­6, 16, 29, 85, 105, 112, 134, 163, 191–­92 Cuban Missile Crisis, 73, 116, 142 culture wars, 81–­82, 115, 134–­35, 140, 157, 169, 182–­83, 189, 193 Cumbey, Constance, 136–­37 Dahl, Roald, 64 Daniel (book of the Bible), 9, 13, 66 Darby, John Nelson, 12–­15, 46, 189 Dark Mountain Project, 188–­89 Darrow, Clarence, 49 Darwin, Charles, x, 1–­3 Darwinism, 6–­7, 23, 26, 28, 30, 38, 81, 157 Day After, The, 119–­20 Day After Tomorrow, The, 169–­70 Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951), 65 De Forest, Eleanor, 50–­51 De Grainville, Cousin, 9 declension (national), xv, 168, 181, 193 deism, 2 détente, 82, 86, 116–­17 D’Holbach, Baron, 18–­19 Diamond, Jared, 144, 147 dichloro-­diphenyl-­trichloroethane (DDT), 92–­93, 97, 99, 102, 111, 121 disarmament, 68, 79–­80, 131, 158 Disch, Thomas M., 21, 101–­2, 104 dispensational premillennialism; criticized, 130–­31, 155–­56; defined, x, 42–­44, 51–­52, 182; influence of, ix–xv, 70–­71, 112, 130–­31, 157, 174, 181; origins, 13–­17, 41, 70–­71, 76, 78; proponents, 46–­47, 78, 128, 161, 163; spread of, 16–­17, 21, 76–­77, 115–­17, 174, 187–­89, 193; views on science, xii, xv, 47, 55, 105–­6, 189 dispensationalism, 14–­17, 43, 83–­84 Dr. Strangelove, 68, 72–­73 Donahoe, Sydney L., 162 Donnelly, Ignatius, 27–­28, 34–­35 Dooner, Pierton W., 25, 39 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 31, 36–­37 “Duck and Cover,” 114 Dulles, John Foster, 69 Dust Bowl, 90–­91

Index 259

Earth Day, 95–­96, 106, 121, 139, 170 Earth First!, 151–­52, 162 Earth Summit (1992), 143–­44 Earthkeeping, 136 Easterbrook, Gregg, 148 Ebola virus, 173 ecology, 88–­89, 92–­95, 102, 105, 111, 117, 122, 145 Edison, Thomas, 32, 39 Effinger, George Alec, 101 Ehrenfeld, David, 145 Ehrlich, Anne, 133, 143–­44 Ehrlich, Paul, 94–­95, 100, 106–­8, 115, 118, 133, 143–­44, 149 Einstein, Albert, 56, 58–­59 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 69, 115 electromagnetic pulse (EMP), 182 Eliot, T. S., 38 Ellison, Harlan, 78 End of Nature, The, 121–­22 end of the world: by AI or robots, 153, 178–­79; aliens, 39, 124–­25, 154, 169, 191; asteroid/meteor/planetary collision, x, 39–­40, 154, 168, 172, 178; decline of fertility, 156–­57, 168; entropy, 4, 30–­31; environmental causes, 100–­105, 125, 151–­52, 154–­56, 169–­70, 177–­78, 180–­81; nuclear causes, 57, 61–­74, 114–­20, 123–­24, 150–­51, 155, 176, 182; plague, 10, 86, 157, 168, 173, 176, 179–­80; species replacement, 7, 23–­24, 28, 30, 32, 35, 39–­40, 64–­65, 102–­3, 151, 177 Engels, Frederick, 29 Enlightenment, xiv, 2 entropy, 4, 29–­31. See also thermodynamics Environmental Defense Fund, 144 environmental problems. See acid rain; biodiversity; climate change; greenhouse effect; nuclear energy; overpopulation; pollution Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 97, 114, 120, 127 environmentalism: critics of, 98–­99, 111, 127, 163; development of, xv, 75, 103, 111, 113, 127–­28, 144, 151, 160, 162; and evangelicals, xv, 105, 110–­11, 135–­40, 160, 162 eugenics, 36, 38 evangelicalism: conservative, xi–xiv, 13–­18, 42–­44, 51–­52, 78, 81–­82, 157, 183; defined, 15–­17, 46, 52, 76, 78, 115, 128, 134;

English, 13–­14, 16–­17, 131, 180–­81; Irish, 12–­13, 131; liberal, 76, 128–­29; and race, 41, 81–­82, 187–­88; and women, 51–­52, 186–­87 evolution: and Lamarckism, 5, 20, 35; and natural selection, 1–­7, 12, 23–­24, 29–­30, 32, 38, 65, 152; and racism, 25–­29; teleological, 5–­7, 20, 147, 152 evolutionary synthesis, 7 Ezekiel (book of the Bible), 9, 83, 189–­90 Fadiman, Clifton, 61 Faid, Robert, 132–­33 Fail-­Safe: film, 68; novel, 71 fallout, 68–­70, 74, 79, 84, 94, 98, 114, 117, 119–­20 Falwell, Jerry, 115, 128–­29, 182 Fate of the Earth, The, 117–­19 Fermi, Enrico, 57–­58, 124, 132–­33 Fermi’s Paradox, 124, 147 Festinger, Leon, 175 Flammarion, Camille, 31, 36 flood myth. See Noah’s ark Forstchen, William, 182 Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 42 Frank, Pat, 70–­71 Friends of the Earth, 127, 144 Fringe, 177–­78 Fukuyama, Francis, x, 142–­43, 167 Fuller Theological Seminary, 76, 78 fundamentalist Christianity, 44–­46, 48–­49, 51–­52, 75–­76, 115–­17 Fundamentals, The, 16 futurist premillennialism, 13–­14, 43 Gaia theory, 126, 136, 147, 152, 160 Gelbspan, Ross, 146 geology, 3–­4 global cooling. See climate change global warming. See climate change Gog, 46, 83 Goodwin, E. P., 41–­42 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 117, 130 Gore, Al, 145, 154, 160, 169–­71 Gould, Stephen Jay, xi Graham, Billy, 78–­79, 128, 132, 158–­59, 161 Gray, Asa, 6 Gray, James M., 42 Great Depression, 39, 90–­91 Great Recession, 167, 181, 184

260 Index

greenhouse effect, 98, 104, 133–­34, 150, 170–­71, 176. See also climate change Guran, Paula, 175 Hagee, John, 191–­92 Haldeman, Isaac M., 42 Halpern, Paul, 148–­49 Hansen, Jim, 120, 171–­72 Hardin, Garrett, 95 Harrison, Harry, 100–­101 Hawking, Stephen, x, 176 heat death of the universe. See entropy Herbert, Frank, 102 Hindson, Ed, 185, 190–­91 Hiroshima, 56, 58–­60, 75–­76, 92 historicist premillennialism, 43–­44 Hoesch, William A., 162–­63 Holiness movement, 16–­17 Horgan, John, 142 Hot Zone, The, 173 Houston, Teretha G., 156 Hunt, Dave, 136–­39, 157–­58 Hurricane Katrina, 171 Huxley, Aldous, 67, 120 Huxley, Julian, 7 Huxley, T. H., 6, 14, 32, 62 hydrogen bomb, 67–­68, 70, 76, 80, 114, 124 ice age. See climate change imperialism. See colonialism Inconvenient Truth, An, 170–­71 industrialization, 22–­23, 35, 41, 74, 89, 163 Institute of Creation Research, 85, 132, 163 Interstellar, 181 Ira-­Contra affair, 129 Iraq War, 169, 176, 183 Islam, x, 168, 182, 184 Israel: in American politics, 46, 129, 169, 183; in dispensational premillennialism, 13, 43, 81–­83, 158, 165, 183–­85, 187–­91; wars, 81, 85 James, P. D., 156–­57 Jenkins, Jerry B., x, 158, 164, 183, 185 Jeremiah (book of the Bible), 9, 84–­85, 111, 190 Jevons, William Stanley, 29–­30, 34 Johnston, Jerry, 133–­34 Jones, Bob, 76

Kahn, Herman, 71–­72 Kelley, Jack, 189 Kennedy, John F., 73, 80 Keswick Convention, 16 Khrushchev, Nikita, 73, 79–­80 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 81–­82 King, Stephen, 12, 86 Kingsnorth, Paul, 172–­73 Kinley, Jeff, 192 Kirban, Salem, 83–­84, 106–­9 Kissinger, Henry, 72, 119 Klotz, John W., 105 Knight, Damon, 62, 150 Kolbert, Elizabeth, 172 Kötke, William, 146–­48 Kubrick, Stanley, 71–­72 Kuhn, Thomas, 99 Kunstler, James Howard, 181 Kyoto Protocol, 144 LaHaye, Tim, ix, 85, 108, 158, 160, 164, 185–­88, 191 Lalonde, Patti, 139 Lalonde, Peter, 138–­40 Lapp, Ralph, 66 Larkin, Clarence, 47–­48, 52 “last man” genre, 7–­11, 13, 23, 63, 180 Late Great Planet Earth, The, 83–­84, 107 Left Behind series, ix, 108, 158, 164, 185; influence of, 135, 168, 174, 203 Leftovers, The (novel), 174 Leopold, Aldo, 91–­92 Lindsell, Harold, 106 Lindsey, Hal: in the 1970s, 83–­84, 86, 107–­8, 128–­29; in the 1980s, 131–­33, 135–­36; in the 1990s, 158–­60, 162, 164–­65; in the 2000s, 183, 187, 189 Lord Byron, 9–­10, 180 Lord Kelvin. See Thomson, William “Lost Cause” ideology, 20 “Lost Generation,” 38 Lovecraft, H. P., 11–­12 Lovelock, James, 126, 160 Love Canal, 127–­28, 133 Lucky Dragon incident, 68 Lyell, Charles, 3–­4 Magog, 158, 189 Manhattan Project, 57–­58, 63 Marrs, Texe, 134, 160, 163

Index 261

Marsh, George Perkins, 89–­90 massive retaliation, 69 materialism. See atheism Mathews, Shailer, 42 Mayan prophecy, 173, 175 Mayhar, Ardath, 123 McCarthy, Cormac, 173–­74 McIntire, Carl, 76, 79–­80, 82 McKeever, James, 139–­40 McKibben, Bill, 121–­22, 171–­72 McManus, John F., 163 McPherson, Aimee Semple, 51 Meadows, Dennis L., 145–­46 Meadows, Donella H., 145–­46 Megiddo, 129, 161 Meier, Paul, 158–­59 Merril, Judith, 61, 66–­68 mid-­tribulationism, 187–­89 millenarianism. See dispensational premillennialism; futurist premillennialism; historicist premillennialism millennium in dispensational premillennialism, 12–­13, 74, 77–­78, 109–­10, 137, 162; secularized in fiction, 9–­10, 27, 40, 70, 87, 102, 123–­25, 152, 181; secularized in non-­fiction, 60, 74; See also amillennialism; postmillennialism Miller, William, 43, 174 Missler, Chuck, 188–­89, 191 Mitchell, John Ames, 34–­35 modernism, 16–­17, 45–­46, 48 Moody, Dwight, 14–­16, 193 moon landings, 88, 102–­3, 149–­50 Moore, Nathan Grier, 50 Moore, Ward, 100 Moral Majority, 115 Morris, Edmund, 130 Morris, Henry M., 132 Morrison, Philip, 59 Muir, John, 35, 89–­90 Murray, Thomas J., 98 mutually assured destruction (MAD), 69, 71, 116, 119 Naess, Arne, 122 Nagasaki, 55, 58–­60 National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), 76, 79 National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), 68

National Wildlife Federation, 127, 144 Native Americans, 22, 74, 89, 102 natural disasters: and the apocalypse, 21, 28, 36, 65, 154, 168, 171–­72, 178; in the United States, 90–­91, 121–­22 natural resources, 67, 89–­90, 92–­94, 100, 148, 155, 168–­69; in Bible prophecy, 44, 106, 108, 110, 129; coal, 29, 34–­35, 74, 171; oil, 8, 33–­35, 74, 85–­86, 101, 110, 141–­43, 169, 171; water, 143 Nelson, Gaylord, 95 neo-­Darwinism, 5, 7 neo-­evangelicalism, 76, 78 neopaganism, 135–­36, 163 New Age movement, 125, 135–­40, 146–­47, 160–­62, 168, 173, 175 New Deal, 49, 90–­91 NIMBY-­ism, 128 Nixon, Richard, 82, 86, 95–­97, 113, 115, 126, 129 Noah’s ark, 3, 58, 155–­56, 177, 192 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 143–­44 nuclear energy: accidents, 57, 61, 75, 132–­33; benefits of, 56–­57, 77; development, 56–­57, 127; environmental effects, 86 nuclear fission, 56–­58 nuclear freeze movement, 116–­17, 132 nuclear fusion. See hydrogen bomb nuclear testing, 60, 66, 68, 74, 80 nuclear treaties, 82, 86, 130 nuclear war: accidental, 72, 126, 158; in Bible prophecy, xiii, 79–­83, 132–­33, 158–­59, 161, 164–­65, 189–­91; limited, 71, 83, 118; strategy, 69, 71–­72, 128–­31; in secular media, 61–­74, 118–­20, 123–­26, 151, 155–­56, 176; threat of, 56, 59, 87, 94, 113–­18, 141–­42 nuclear winter, 113–­14, 117–­19, 123, 128, 132, 158–­59, 161 Obama, Barack, 168–­69, 184, 186–­87, 189 Ockenga, Harold, 76 oil spills, 95, 154 On the Beach, 68–­70 On the Origin of Species, xiv, xvi, 2–­7, 18 Operation Crossroads, 66 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 57–­59, 64 Osborn, Fairfield, 92–­94

262 Index

overpopulation: in Bible prophecy, 106–­8, 110–­11, 133, 159, 162; in secular media, 92–­96, 100, 102, 104, 113, 143, 149–­51 ozone layer, 97, 108–­9, 114, 117, 120–­21, 126–­27, 132–­33, 143, 154, 158–­59, 163 pandemics, 10, 24, 86, 168, 173, 176–­77, 179, 187–­88 Pangborn, Edgar, 73 parallel universes, 177 Parshall, Craig, 185–­86, 191 Pauling, Linus, 68–­69, 72 Pentagon Papers, 96 Pentecostalism, 17, 46, 51–­52, 76 Peretti, Frank, 137–­38 Perotta, Tom, 174 Persian Gulf War, 141–­43, 156–­57, 159, 185 Piercy, Marge, 102 Pinchot, Gifford, 90 plague. See Ebola virus; pandemics; vampires; zombies Planet of the Apes, The (1968), 170 Plymouth Brethren, 13, 16, 46 Poling, Daniel, 75 pollution: air/water, 67, 93–­98, 100–­105, 113, 126, 144, 148, 150; in Bible prophecy, xiii, 44, 74, 105–­11, 133, 137–­40, 159, 191. See also oil spills; smog; toxic waste Population Bomb, The, 94, 100, 106, 133 Populist movement, 27 postapocalypse, 67, 74, 124–­25, 173, 176, 180. See also millennium in dispensational premillennialism; survivalism posthumanism, 152–­53, 178, 192 postmillennialism, 12, 19, 38, 136 postmodernism, 67, 99 posttribulationism, 188–­9 premillennialism. See dispensational premillennialism; futurist premillennialism; historicist premillennialism preservationism, 89–­90, 92 Preston, Richard, 173 pre-­Tribulationism, 187–­91 pre-­Wrath, 188–­89 primitivism, 73–­74, 102, 123, 148 progress: cultural, xiv–xv, 14–­15, 26–­27, 29, 36–­38, 147; and science, 5–­6, 15, 35, 41, 67, 145, 172; and technology, 19–­21, 24, 89, 153, 176

Progressivism, 35–­36 prophecy conferences, 16, 41–­42 Rabi, I. I., 58 racism in American society, xiv, 20, 23–­24, 28, 36; in apocalyptic works, 23, 27, 39, 73–­74, 195; among white evangelicals, 41, 51, 81–­82, 107. See also eugenics; Yellow Peril Randers, Jørgen, 145–­46 rapture, the, ix, 49, 139, 172, 174, 183, 187–­91; origins of, 13; secularized, 131, 153, 168, 174 Reagan, Ronald, 115–­17, 124, 127–­32, 183 Reed, Robert, 176–­77 Revelation (book of the Bible), xvi, 9–­10, 44–­45, 51–­52, 54, 77–­79, 83, 158, 183; specific verses, 10, 52, 107–­9, 132–­33, 135, 160, 190; in secular media, 66, 111–­12, 148 revivalism, 46 Richardson, Joel, 184 Rice, John R., 52 Road, The (novel), 173–­74 Robertson, Pat, 115 robots, 64, 153, 168, 178–­79. See also artificial intelligence; singularity Romanticism, 7–­8, 10, 16, 23, 89 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 49, 58 Roosevelt, Theodore, 20, 90 Russia, 46, 142–­43, 158–­59, 188–­90. See also Soviet Union Rutherford, Ernest, 56 Ryrie, Charles C., 134–­35 Salus, Bill, 186, 190 Satan, 32, 44, 138, 165, 182, 184; in the end–­times, 16, 83, 137–­38, 140, 186–­87 Sax, Karl, 93 Schell, Jonathan, 117–­19 Schneider, Stephen, 98, 122, 150 Schumacher, E. F., 103–­4, 136 science and religion: perspective of conservative evangelicals, 42–­43, 47, 50, 105, 134–­35, 191–­93; relationship between, x–xii, 1–­2, 14–­15, 19, 54, 62, 75, 122, 181 science fiction: defined, 21, 23, 37, 39 23; as prophecy, 61, 104, 112, 173, 175 scientific apocalypticism, origins of, xiv, 7–­12, 18, 20–­21, 23, 28 Scofield, Cyrus, 15, 46, 52

Index 263

Scofield Bible, 46 Scopes trial, 6, 48–­49 secular apocalypticism, 7–­9. See also scientific apocalypticism secularization, 63, 181 Seventh-­day Adventism (SDA), 43–­44, 49, 165 Shaler, Nathan, 35 Shelley, Mary, 7–­8, 10–­12, 63 Shute, Nevil, 68–­70, 120, 180 Sierra Club, 89, 127, 136, 144 Silent Spring, 93–­94, 99, 101 singularity, 153 Six-­Day War, 81, 143 Smith, Chuck, 108 Smith, Wilbur, 78 smog, 93, 95, 122, 143 socialism, 28, 163–­64 Social Gospel, 42. See also postmillennialism Soviet Union, 64, 68–­69, 71–­72, 82, 86, 124, 158; in Bible prophecy, 79–­80, 84, 116, 128, 130–­31, 158; fall of, 129, 140, 142 Soylent Green (film), 100–­101 Space Race, 82, 149. See also colonization of other planets; moon landings speculative fiction. See science fiction Spinrad, Norman, 125, 152 spiritual warfare, 138 spiritualism, 31 “Star Wars.” See Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Stephenson, Neal, 150 Stevenson, Adlai, 68 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 30 stewardship, 105–­6, 139, 159, 161 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 116, 128, 130 Strauss, Lehman, 82–­83 Sturgeon, Theodore, 62–­63 survivalism, 71, 117–­18, 165–­66, 175 Szilard, Leo, 56, 58–­59, 72, 122 Tait, Asa Oscar, 44–­45 Tea Party, 167 technology: critics of, 21–­22, 26–­28, 41, 53, 62, 99–­100, 125, 135, 166, 177–­80; definition of, xi, 19, 193; and progress, 20, 33, 39, 64, 89–­90; as solution, 66–­67, 104, 130, 145, 152–­54, 181 Teller, Edward, 57–­58, 72, 124

terrorism, x, 151, 168, 179, 185 Tesla, Nikola, 34 Test Ban Treaty, 68, 74, 80 Testament, 119–­20 theistic evolution, 3, 6–­7 thermodynamics, 3–­4, 29–­30 This Present Darkness, 137–­38 Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin), 3–­4, 29, 34 Threads, 120 Three Mile Island incident, 75, 110–­11, 113, 127, 133 time travel, 30–­31, 64, 102, 153, 178 Townsend, Luther T., 45–­46 toxic waste, 127–­28, 133 transhumanism. See posthumanism Tribulation period, 13, 51, 134, 160, 168, 187–­91; environmental problems during, 107, 109, 185, 191; nuclear war during, 77–­78, 83–­84, 158, 189 Truman, Harry, 58, 64 Trumball, Charles G., 50 Twain, Mark, 26–­27 Tyndall, John, 14, 29 UFOs, 124, 139–­40, 161, 168, 192 Union of Concerned Scientists, 145 vampires, 168, 179, 277 Venus syndrome. See greenhouse effect Verne, Jules, 21–­22, 37 Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, 2–­3 Vietnam War, 74, 82, 86, 95–­96, 167 Vinge, Vernor, 153 Vogt, William, 92–­94 Walking Dead, The (TV), 179–­80 Wallis, George C., 34 Wallis, Jim, 129 Walvoord, John, 129, 134–­35 war in Afghanistan, 167, 169, 183 War of the Worlds (novel), 32 War of the Worlds (radio broadcast), 154 War on Terror, xv, 167, 181 Watergate, 86 Watt, James G., 129 “weird” fiction, 11–­12 Weisberg, Barry, 97 Welles, Orson, 154 Wells, H. G., 30–­32, 39, 56–­57, 64, 120

264 Index

When the Wind Blows (film), 120 Whitaker, John C., 95 White, Ellen G., 43–­44 White, Lynn, 95, 105–­6 William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 50 Wilson, E. O., 121, 147–­48, 151 Wilson, Woodrow, 37 Winters, Ben H., 178 witchcraft. See neopaganism; New Age movement women: and evangelicals, 43–­44, 51, 186; in science, 3; in science fiction, 67, 151; and sexism, 6, 23, 51, 151 women’s rights movement, 81–­82, 115, 157

world government, 56, 79, 137, 163 World War I, 19, 35, 37–­38, 48, 53, 75, 173 World War II, xiv, 23, 25, 55–­56, 63, 91; and Bible prophecy, 17, 50; and scientific apocalypticism, 27, 39, 52–­53, 93 Wylie, Philip, 39, 61–­62, 66–­68, 104 Y2K, 165–­66 Yellow Peril, 23–­27, 74 Yom Kippur War, 85 Zechariah (book of the Bible), 51, 77, 165 Zionism, 12–­13, 46, 81, 183, 189 zombies, 179–­80

Ac k n o w l e d g m e n t s

This book has been many years in the making, and I have acquired significant debts to the readers and listeners of my ideas. I am most grateful to Patrick Allitt, who has spent many years helping me to become a better writer and researcher. Any positive merits of this book are a credit to his mentorship. Brooks Holifield also applied his considerable editorial skills to this work, and I am thankful to him for helping me clarify the key ideas at stake. I have had many informal conversations with my friend and colleague Paul Thompson about evangelical history over the years, and I thank him for his assistance in thinking through issues involving evangelical identity. Others at Emory who offered helpful commentary on portions of this book over the years include Walter Adamson, Fraser Harbutt, Leslie Harris, and Jack Zupko. My fellow presenters at the American Studies Association annual meeting in 2012, Jennifer Carlberg and Michael McVicar, provided some helpful comments on the research for the last chapter. Thanks also go to our panel’s chair, Scott Poole, for his suggestions regarding the American gothic. I thank the two anonymous peer reviewers for their thoughtful comments. Ronald L. Numbers also reviewed this manuscript, and his sage observations led me through the final revisions of this work. He kindly furnished me with a chapter he coauthored with Jeff Hardin for a forthcoming book, “The Idea That Wouldn’t Die”—​­The Warfare Between Science and Religion: Historical and Sociological Perspectives, edited by Numbers, Hardin, and their colleague Ronald A. Binzley. Elaine Ecklund, John Evans, Bradley Gundlach, and Christopher Scheitle also shared their essays to be published in that same volume. All were invaluable in refining my understanding of the science-­ and-­religion relationship. Finally, I must thank my parents for putting up with me over the many

266 Acknowledgments

years this project has spanned. Their suffering is second only to my husband’s. I’ve dedicated this book to Ford for his longtime support and encouragement in spite of the many times he’s had to move hefty boxes of apocalyptic books across country and endure (surprisingly) pedantic soliloquies on the end of the world.