Apparently, we’ve been thinking about the end of the world since about 1800 B.C., the date ascribed to the myth of Atrahasis, a Mesopotamian creation story that predates Biblical writings by several hundred years and features a world-cleansing flood. What do the stories we tell about the apocalypse tell us about ourselves? A new book assembles biological, geological, archeological, literary, and cinematic permutations of existential finales, leaving no stone unturned, be it meteor, comet, or asteroid.

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 Apparently, we’ve been thinking about the end of the world since about 1800 B.C., the date ascribed to the myth of Atrahasis, a Mesopotamian creation story that predates Biblical writings by several hundred years and features a world-cleansing flood. What do the stories we tell about the apocalypse tell us about ourselves? A new book assembles biological, geological, archeological, literary, and cinematic permutations of existential finales, leaving no stone unturned, be it meteor, comet, or asteroid.

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