Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia

by John Gray

During the last century global politics was shaped by utopian projects. Pursuing a dream of a world without evil, powerful states waged war and practised terror on an unprecedented scale. From Germany to Russia to China to Afghanistan entire societies were destroyed.

Utopian ideologies rejected traditional faiths and claimed to be based in science. They were actually secular versions of the myth of Apocalypse - the belief in a world-changing event that brings history, with all its conflicts, to an end. The war in Iraq was the last of these secular utopias, promising a new era of democracy and producing blood-soaked anarchy and an emerging theocracy instead.

Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, John Gray's powerful and frightening new book, argues that the death of utopia does not mean peace. Instead it portends the resurgence of ancient myths, now in openly fundamentalist forms. Obscurely mixed with geopolitical struggles for the control of natural resources, apocalyptic religion has returned as a major force in global conflict.

• ISBN10: 0374105987
• ISBN13: 9780374105983
• Publish Date: 16 October 2007 (first published 5 July 2007)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 July 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 242
• Language: English

Reviews

[celinenyx]

Working from the assumption that utopian thinking is pervasive in modern-day politics, much to its detriment, Gray lays out his argument for a rationalist approach. I like how he analyzes thinkers from a theory of utopia, but when he discusses American policies he becomes patronizing and rather tedious. Can't say I regret reading Black Mass, but I think I'll leave his other books for what they are.