No, I'm not crazy. Hear me out.
I just published a new issue of For The Learn about apocalypses after being inspired by the podcast and book by Dan Carlin (of Hardcode History fame) and then I started seeing apocalypses everywhere in both daily and historic life, even as recently as two years ago.
Carlin's book, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses was a great read, covering relatively "bloodless" apocalypses of empires from Assyrian to Roman to the very "bloody" incredible Black Plague that killed 60% of Europe's population. One of the key points that Carlin makes in his book is that what history views as an "apocalypse" may have been more like a transition to a new dynamic. He points out that although the people who experienced the "transition" probably viewed like an apocalypical disaster, after reading it I started noticing the many transitions (violent or peaceful) in other books I was reading.
Anyways, if writing that connects distant topics into a common thread interests you check it out the latest issue of my occasional email and RSS newsletter over at For The Learn, titled The Past, Present, and Future Apocalypse. Every issue includes a "Links of Interest" section of currated books, podcasts, videos and articles which functions like that "Suggested Videos" wormhole section of YouTube that you find yourself falling into. 😜
Joseph Quigley
