Everything Must Go

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What to expect

A brilliantly original exploration of our obsession with the end of the world, from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man to the Manic Street Preachers’ Everything Must Go.

'Brilliant, scholarly, sharp and witty’ – Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

'Will make you happy to be alive and reading – until the lights go out . . . Brilliant' – The Spectator

For two millennia, Christians have anticipated the end of the world, haunted by the apocalyptic visions of the Book of Revelation. But over the past two centuries, these dark fantasies have given way to secular stories of how the world, our planet, or our species (or all of the above) might be annihilated.

In Everything Must Go – a cultural history of the modern world that weaves together politics, history, science, high and popular culture – Dorian Lynskey explores the endings that we have read, listened to, or watched, while perched on the edge of our seats with eyes wide, (mostly) loving every moment.

Whether with visions of destruction by nuclear holocaust or a mighty collision with a meteor, a devastating epidemic or a violent takeover by robots, why do we like to scare ourselves, and why do we keep coming back for more?

Deeply illuminating about our past, our present and – given the revelation that the end of the world has seemingly always been nigh – hopeful about our future, Everything Must Go will grip you from beginning to, well, end.

'I was blown away by this book' – Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland

'Impossibly epic, brain-expanding, life-affirming and profound' – Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't

Critics Review

Clever and voluminous . . . So engagingly plotted and written that it’s a pleasure to bask in its constant stream of remarkable titbits and illuminating insights.
The Guardian
Everything Must Go will make you happy to be alive and reading – until the lights go out . . . Brilliant.
The Spectator
Lynskey has a journalist’s eye for a great story and a killer quotation . . . He is ridiculously well informed.
Literary Review
Lynskey's encyclopedic knowledge . . . and his glee at the sheer inventiveness of the doomsayers' creations, make this an unlikely page-turner . . . a curiously entertaining read.
Mat Osman, Observer
A fascinating guide . . . full of lesser-known cultural gems.
New Scientist
Terrifically entertaining
The New York Times
Clever and insightful
The Washington Post
Doom without the gloom . . . the book's own stock of revelations never runs short
The New Yorker
We keep having conversations these days about how it feels like the End Times . . . turns out, we've ALWAYS felt it's the End Times. I cannot recommend Dorian Lynskey’s book enough. For a book about Armageddon, it's very uplifting.
Caitlin Moran, author of How to Be a Woman
A rich and remarkable book
Matthew D'Ancona, The New European
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 Empireland
So enjoyable, that I didn't want it to end – the world, or the book.
Adam Rutherford, author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
A major piece of work, [a] heavyweight yet fleet-of-foot look at humankind’s fixation on the end of days, told through the prism of history, religion, literature, popular art, science and more, as compelling as it is authoritative.
The Telegraph
Impossibly epic, brain-expanding, life-affirming and profound. You’ll never see humanity the same way again.
Ian Dunt, author of How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't
For a book drenched in destruction, Everything Must Go is not depressing, and often wryly funny. It is incredibly deeply researched, fluently written, moving deftly between close-up detail and broad-brush analysis.
The Arts Desk

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