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Article: Imagining Apocalypse.(Review)
- Article from:
- Utopian Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Society for Utopian Studies. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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David Seed, ed. Imagining Apocalypse.
New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. ix + 240 pp. $55.00.
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that a seemingly straightforward word like "apocalypse" would inspire essayists to plunge off in so many different directions? This collection informs us of apocalyptic relevance in, among others, Walden, King Lear, urban drug culture, the existence of the atomic bomb, and automobile crashes.
Of course, this is in considerable part due to a haziness surrounding the word itself. Looking it up in a number of dictionaries (sort of like, "When all else fails, read the instructions") results in a surprising variety of definitions, ...