A Brief History of the End of the F*cking World

Tom Phillips

$34.99

Paperback

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English

WILDFIRE
25 February 2025

History; Social & cultural history; History of ideas; Humour

Do you feel like we're living in the end times? Does it seem like everything is on fire, and one disaster follows another?

Here's a small comfort: you're not the first to feel that way. If there's one thing that people throughout history have agreed on, it's that history wasn't going to be around for much longer.

This book is about the apocalypse, and how humans have always believed it to be very f
*cking nigh. Across thousands of years, we'll meet weird cults, failed prophets and mass panics, holy warriors leading revolts in anticipation of the last days, and suburbanites waiting for aliens to rescue them from a doomed Earth. We'll journey back to the 'worst period to be alive', as the world reeled from a simultaneous pandemic and climate crisis. And we'll look to the future to ask the unnerving question: how might it all end?

But it's also a book about how we live in a world where catastrophe is always looming - whether it's a madman with a nuclear button or the slow burn of environmental collapse. Because when we talk about the end of the world, what we really mean is the end of our world. Our obsession with doomsday is really about change: our fear of it, and our desire for it, and how - ultimately - we can find hope in it.

Praise for the Brief History series:

'Uproarious . . . Abundant good humour' The Times

'Witty, entertaining and slightly distressing... You should probably read it' Sarah Knight, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F
*ck

'Brilliant. Utterly, utterly brilliant' Jeremy Clarkson

'Very funny' Mark Watson

'Both readable and entertaining' Telegraph

By: Tom Phillips
Imprint: WILDFIRE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 30mm
Weight: 460g
ISBN: 9781035402182
ISBN 10: 1035402181
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 25 February 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Tom Phillips is the former editor of Full Fact, Britain's leading independent fact-checking organisation. Previously he was the editorial director of BuzzFeed UK. Tom's first book, HUMANS: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up, was published in 2018, and has since been translated into more than 30 languages. Tom's second book, TRUTH: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t was published in 2019 and has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews for A Brief History of the End of the F*cking World

Superb ... entertaining ... Phillips traverses this sprawling terrain with energy and charm. * The Telegraph * [A] topically valuable corrective for those who think - what with Gaza, Ukraine, floods, firestorms and fools with their fingers on world-ending buttons - we are indeed in the end times and should descend into our silos or colonise Mars ... Fans of Phillips's earlier books Humans: A Brief History of How we F*cked It All Up and Truth: A Brief History of Total Bullsh*t will be pleased that the ex-BuzzFeed editor is on form, not letting the grimness of his subject spoil his gagsmithery. * The Guardian * A great read ... [Phillips] fills his timeline of unfulfilled apocalypses with wry humour and keeps the queue of plagues and judgements accessible. * New Scientist *