This morning’s Thought for the Day, given by the Revd Dr Michael Banner of Trinity College, Cambridge, used the death of Desmond Morris to raise an old question in a new form: are human beings fallen angels or risen devils? That reflection led me back to the postwar cultural watershed and to a select list of books that challenged inherited ideas about religion, science, human nature, and modern civilisation.
Apocalyptic thinking is not a Christian novelty but a universal human archetype. From Mesopotamian floods to Hindu yugas, Aztec suns, and modern fears of climate collapse or nuclear war, humanity has always wrestled with visions of the end. Like children confronting the fear of death through rituals, societies create apocalyptic narratives to impose meaning on chaos. Evangelical warnings that “the end is nigh” are therefore not unique—they echo the same deep anxiety found across cultures and ages.