America's Fascination With The Apocalypse

The Great American Addiction: The Apocalypse.

Matthew Barrett Gross and his wife Mel Giles have teamed up to research and publish a fascinating book about the addiction of apocalypse in the American in culture. From our religious evangelical Protestant history to our pop culture, Americans have been fascinated with the end since the European colonization. But what has changed over the centuries to the current American pathos about the end? Gross and Giles, have found the idea of the end now transcends evangelical religion and has become an idea that also concerns the left and not just the far right. Some attribute these thoughts to climate change, many feel that it comes from the economy, or the fact is that the American Century has peaked.

With in a years time span Americans have been soaking up entertainment and new of the apocalypse. The 2012 Super Bowl was highlighted by a truck ad that predicted the future as bleak and inhospitable. With in the realm of film and television, there has been the Hunger Games, a reality show's about people prepping for the doomsday.

The Last Myth explores a question that we rarely ask as we sit enthralled by the latest apocalyptic piece of entertainment: what if our current fascination with the apocalypse actually means something? And what might we do to move beyond apocalyptic thinking and embrace the future.