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