Everything Must Go

Description

A rich, captivating, and darkly humorous look into the evolution of apocalyptic thought throughout history, how film and literature reflect real developments in science, politics, and culture, and what factors drive our perennial obsession with death and dying.

As Dorian Lynskey writes, “People have been contemplating the end of the world for millennia.” In this immersive, darkly playful and compelling look, at first, into how religions of the East and West have dealt with death and apocalypse, Lynskey moves on to his seven secular visions which are rich historical discussions. In these, he writes about the 19th century up to the present day of the doomsday tropes and predictions in the literature, art, music and film of each era. In his seven secular visions, Lynskey points up the events that inspired final day thoughts whether it is comets, pandemics, the Spanish Flu Epidemic, World War I and II, the bomb, the Cuban Missile Crisis or Y2K. His first secular vision chapter, set in the 19th century is a beautifully written look at the doomsday mania triggered by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora that led to temporary climate change and to Byron’s poem Darkness (1816) about the end of the world and Mary Shelley’s Last Man (1926), a dystopian science fiction novel. This is a book that feels very of the moment but rather than being grim is so rich in wonderful unknown stories and facts that it is magically transporting. Lynskey lets us keep company with celebrated works of art, writers and films among them: H.G. Wells, Jack London, W.B. Yeats, J.G. Ballard, or such comics as Superman and, of course, The Twilight Zone or Dr. Strangelove.

Prescient and original, Everything Must Go is a brilliant work of history that provides many astute insights for our times.“I was blown away by this book. The staggering range of references, the razor-sharp analysis, the wisdom, left me gasping out loud at times. Lynskey also somehow manages to make a book about the end of the world feel . . . hopeful. One of the best non-fiction writers around.”
—Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireworld

“Impossibly epic, brain-expanding, life-affirming and profound. You’ll never see humanity the same way again.”
—Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster WorksDORIAN LYNSKEY is the author of 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs (2011) and The Ministry of Truth: A Biography of George Orwell’s 1984 (2019). His writing on music, film, and politics has appeared in various publications including The New Statesman, The Spectator, BBC Culture and Slate.US

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