For Puritans living in a “New” England, the promise of Jesus Christ’s return was a source of both dread and hope, a paradox that lay at the heart of their eschatology. In their writings, the end times was figured, by turns, as an epoch unfolding in the churches of New England, a cataclysmic "Day of Doom" and judgment, and a ray of hope for physical and spiritual restoration. Jesus’s words recorded in Matthew 24:42, "Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come," commanded righteous vigilance and detachment from worldly things; they also spurred paranoia and a keen attention to world affairs, especially in Palestine. Though Puritan theologians did not agree on the time, manner, or place of Christ’s return, they imagined a unique role for New England, even if as a "specimen of the new heavens and new earth," as Increase Mather wrote. This essay examines how Puritan writers dramatized and tested these apocalyptic visions in a range of literary forms, from sermons and treatises to epic poetry and meditative verse.

In addition to evoking western lands and democratic politics, the very name of America has also encouraged apocalyptic visions. The “American Dream” has not only been about the prospect of material prosperity; it has also been about the end of the world. Final forecasts constitute one of America’s oldest literary genres, extending from the eschatological theology of the New England Puritans to the revolutionary discourse of the early republic, the emancipatory rhetoric of the Civil War, the anxious fantasies of the atomic age, and the doomsday digital media of today. For those studying the history of America, renditions of the apocalypse are simply unavoidable. This collection brings together two dozen essays by prominent scholars that explore the meanings of apocalypse across different periods, regions, genres, registers, modes, and traditions of American literature and culture. It locates the logic and rhetoric of apocalypse at the very core of American literary history.

Oil is a non–renewable resource so as we consume it there is less remaining in the earth’s crust. Starting with King Hubbert in the 1950s, geologists have depicted the path of oil discovery and depletion with a bell curve of rising production, a peak, and then declining production. Some people argue that when production hits the peak (peak oil), energy prices will rise and stay high, severely disrupting a global economic system dependent on cheap energy. The high energy prices will either cause a complete breakdown of society (the view of preppers and catastrophists) or a shift to energy efficiency, renewables, and nuclear, which will automatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the peak oil belief is a myth, at least for the next decades. High oil prices also trigger more innovation to find and extract plentiful oil from the earth’s crust, and the quantities dwarf our consumption. People who are worried about peak oil need to understand that the climate threat is already here and a much greater concern. And, serendipitously, reducing greenhouse gas emissions also reduces oil demand, preventing peak oil.