In the early twentieth century, a new, American scripture appeared on the scene. It was the product of a school of theological thinking known as Dispensationalism, which offered a striking new way of reading the Bible, one that focused attention squarely on the end-times. That scripture, The Scofield Reference Bible, would become the ur-text of American apocalyptic evangelicalism. But while the Scofield took hold in the United States, the belief system from which it emerged, Dispensationalism, was not primarily a homegrown American phenomenon. In The Americanization of the Apocalypse: Creating America's Own Bible Donald Harman Akenson examines the creation and spread of Dispensationalism. The story is a transnational one: created in southern Ireland by evangelical Anglicans, who were terrified by the rise of Catholicism, then transferred to England, where it was expanded upon and next carried to British North America by "Brethren" missionaries and then subsequently embraced by American evangelicals. Akenson combines a respect for individual human agency with an equal recognition of the complex and persuasive ideational system that apocalyptic Dispensationalism presented. For believers, the system explained the world and its future. For the wider culture, the product of this rich evolution was a series of concepts that became part of the everyday vocabulary of American life: end-times, apocalypse, Second Coming, Rapture, and millennium. The Americanization of the Apocalypse is the first book to document, using direct archival evidence, the invention of the epochal Scofield Reference Bible, and thus the provenance of modern American evangelicalism.

The relationship between early Mormons and the United States was marked by anxiety and hostility, heightened over the course of the nineteenth century by the assassination of Mormon leaders, the Saints' exile from Missouri and Illinois, the military occupation of the Utah territory, and the national crusade against those who practiced plural marriage. Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints looked forward to apocalyptic events that would unseat corrupt governments across the globe, particularly the tyrannical government of the United States. The infamous "White Horse Prophecy" referred to this coming American apocalypse as "a terrible revolutionEL in the land of America, such as has never been seen before; for the land will be literally left without a supreme government." Mormons envisioned divine deliverance by way of plagues, natural disasters, foreign invasions, American Indian raids, slave uprisings, or civil war unleashed on American cities and American people. For the Saints, these violent images promised a national rebirth that would vouchsafe the protections of the United States Constitution and end their oppression. In Terrible Revolution, Christopher James Blythe examines apocalypticism across the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, particularly as it took shape in the writings and visions of the laity. The responses of the church hierarchy to apocalyptic lay prophecies promoted their own form of separatist nationalism during the nineteenth century. Yet, after Utah obtained statehood, as the church sought to assimilate to national religious norms, these same leaders sought to lessen the tensions between themselves and American political and cultural powers. As a result, visions of a violent end to the nation became a liability to disavow and regulate. Ultimately, Blythe argues that the visionary world of early Mormonism, with its apocalyptic emphases, continued in the church's mainstream culture in modified forms but continued to maintain separatist radical forms at the level of folk-belief.

For 100 years, Hollywood has provided both the majority and the most popular of films shown on British screens. For many Britons, Hollywood films are not foreign films. Whether seen in the cinema, on television or the internet, they are regarded as normal screen fare and a part of everyday life. Hollywood and the Americanization of Britain is the first book to take a wide ranging view of this phenomenon, exploring the tastes and preferences of British audiences from the silent era to the present. Mark Glancy investigates the British reception of Hollywood films, ranging from The Public Enemy through film history to The Patriot and Grease. Drawing on rich original sources, his carefully researched and lively book explores Hollywood's capacity to appeal to British audiences, as well as its ability to alienate, enrage and amuse them.

In this fully revised edition of his groundbreaking book, Fred Powell looks behind "the mirror of power" to discover the real civil society--or Big Society--that lies beneath it. Articulating three forms of civil society--radical, liberal, and conservative--he examines a complex interplay between state and community, arguing that citizens contend for power via civil society. This is both a historic pursuit dating to antiquity and a contemporary democratic struggle between competing visions of modernity, the stakes of which are no less than "real" politics themselves as experienced by everyday citizens. The second edition includes a new concluding chapter on practical and policy implications.

Traditional apocalyptic texts concern the advent of a better world at the end of history that will make sense of everything that happened before. But what is at stake in the contemporary shift to apocalyptic narratives in which the utopian end of time is removed? The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel offers an innovative critical model for our cultural obsession with 'the end' by focussing on the significance of time in the 21st-century post-apocalyptic novel and challenging traditional apocalyptic logic. Once confined to the genre of science fiction, the increasing popularity of end-of-the-world narratives has caused apocalyptic writing to feature in the work of some of contemporary literature's most well-known fiction writers. Considering novels by Will Self, Cormac McCarthy, David Mitchell, Emily St. John Mandel, Jeanette Winterson and others, Diletta De Cristofaro frames the contemporary apocalyptic imagination as a critique of modernity's apocalyptic conception of time and history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the book historicises apocalyptic beliefs by exploring how relentlessly they have shaped the modern world.

This remarkable collection of original essays by a distinguished group of American and English scholars explores attitudes toward apocalyptic thought and the Book of Revelation as they were reflected, over many centuries, in theological discourse, political activity, and artistic and literary endeavors.

John Nelson Darby is best known as the architect of the most influential system of end-times thinking among the world's half-a-billion evangelicals. This book re-examines Darby's thought and argues that claims that Darby is the father of dispensationalism may need to be revised.

This provocative three-volume encyclopedia is a valuable resource for readers seeking an understanding of how movies have both reflected and helped engender America's political, economic, and social history. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia is a reference text focused on the relationship between American society and movies and filmmaking in the United States from the late 19th century through the present. Beyond discussing many important American films ranging from Birth of a Nation to Star Wars to the Harry Potter film series, the essays included in the volumes explore sensitive issues in cinema related to race, class, and gender, authored by international scholars who provide unique perspectives on American cinema and history. Written by a diverse group of distinguished scholars with backgrounds in history, film studies, culture studies, science, religion, and politics, this reference guide will appeal to readers new to cinema studies as well as film experts. Each encyclopedic entry provides data about the film, an explanation of the film's cultural significance and influence, information about significant individuals involved with that work, and resources for further study.

The United States, the only country to have dropped the bomb, and Japan, the only one to have suffered its devastation, understandably portray the nuclear threat differently on film. American science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s generally proclaim that it is possible to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. Japanese films of the same period assert that once freed the nuclear genie can never again be imprisoned. This book examines genre films from the two countries released between 1951 and 1967--including Godzilla (1954), The Mysterians (1957), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), On the Beach (1959), The Last War (1961) and Dr. Strangelove (1964)--to show the view from both sides of the Pacific.