The Dove and the Dragon
A Cultural History of the Apocalypse
- History & Biography
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2025
FritzSearch.com earns a commission on purchases made through Bookshop.org links.
Publisher's Description
No Western religious concept has been as socially, culturally, economically, and politically significant as that of the apocalypse. Neither heaven and hell, nor sin and salvation, nor even God and the devil have merited the attention of billions of people in the manner that belief in the end of the world has. Apocalyptic thinking is riven by a fruitful--and at times dangerous--binary between the hopes for a coming millennium when all shall be perfected or of a fiery deluge when the earth shall be destroyed. The Dove and the Dragon is the first comprehensive history of Western apocalypticism. Ed Simon introduces a new system for classifying movements concerned with the end of history, between hopeful, millennial "doves" and violent, apocalyptic "dragons." This framing connects a seemingly disparate phenomenon, from medieval millennialism to modern Marxism, Reformation apocalypticism to contemporary techno-utopianism. Expected groups are considered, but unexpected phenomena are interpreted through the lens of apocalypticism as well to argue that those that have often been classified as "secular" still take part in this ancient theological category. This new way of interpreting history gives sense to the full scope of apocalypticism as a series of movements and as a genre, including not just religion and theology, but politics, philosophy, and pop culture as well. The Dove and the Dragon promises to be the standard introduction for years to come.
Endorsements (6)
“Praise for The Dove and the Dragon Ed Simon is the prolific cultural historian for our apocalyptic age, and his latest work is as ambitious as it is intimate. From the Dead Sea Scrolls to medieval Cathars and Fraticelli to the fiery rhetoric of modern politics, The Dove and the Dragon unfurls a tapestry of ideas where angels whisper and prophets roar. It’s a lucid and learned encyclopedia that leaves you at once awed and grounded—a reminder that every era, not just ours, is fraught with crises and hope.”
“book.”
“merited the attention of billions”: the end of the world. Simon is the perfect guide for such an expansive subject. His schema for apocalyptic thinking—the dove and the dragon—is a brilliant lens through which to engage a massive subject. Simon demonstrates that apocalypticism is neither fringe thinking nor historical footnote; he expertly reveals that wonder and worry over the end of time fuels religion, literature, art, and politics.”
“How did the apocalypse become a theological idea that wields more cultural influence over modernity than God? Ed Simon seeks an answer to this question, tracing the elusive double-edged sword of apocalyptic thought: gentle like a dove, yet violent as a dragon. His ambitious and insightful apocalyptic history illuminates our enduring, and yet never more relevant, obsession with the end of the world.”
“breadth of knowledge necessary for a history of the apocalypse from ancient Judea to the Anthropocene—fortunately we have Ed Simon.”
“Ed Simon is up to his old tricks, getting ahead of us, showing us how to think better in the present by reading for the ending. In this case, that ending is the one that comes when time has run out and the meaning of history is revealed, in retrospect, as the purification of all that has come before. But Armageddon is not the only path to apocalypse, Simon demonstrates, because purification by fire is not the only way to imagine perfection: If we let it, the dove will have as much to say as the dragon in our designs of and for the future. The importance of this book, another tour de force, resides in the recognition that the task now before us is not to choose between these two figures but to realize that there will never be an ending that is already a foregone conclusion.”
See something wrong on this page? Report a problem