"The current obsession with the 'end of the millennium' illustrates the enduring power of the idea of endings. This fascination cannot simply be dismissed as faulty logic, a form of madness, or a primitive survival of childish thinking. Opening a path of understanding between ancient conceptions of meaning and the sceptical predicates of modern science, Awaiting Apocalypse shows how ordinary and extra-ordinary endings are inherent in the narrative structure of human experience and the sedimentation of that experience as historical meaning."--BOOK JACKET.