WORLDS ENDING. ENDING WORLDS: UNDERSTANDING APOCALYPTIC TRANSFORMATION. Edited by JennyStümer, MichaelDunn, and DavidEisler. Apocalyptic and Post‐Apocalyptic Studies, 1. Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2024. Pp. viii+250, Hardback, €79.95; E‐Bo

The apocalypse is polysemic in nature and has saliently been managed within the Judeo-Christian heritage. Perspectives deriving from this context tend to frame apocalypse as a discourse of uncritical edification, concerned only with moral narratives aimed at attaining divine salvation, or with a conceited mastery over nature through technology that assumes world-ending catastrophes can be annulled or averted. This book presents a radical approach to exploring apocalypse, not merely as a senseless catastrophe that destroys the single, imperial “world” we inhabit. Instead, it reconsiders apocalypse as a locus of meaning-making, one that can open up possibilities for the liberation and transformation of marginalized groups and their political movements in a post-colonial context. It serves as a critique, revealing the structures of racialized capitalist dominance and the technocratic authoritarianism of powerful business moguls, dynamics that reflect today's social, political, and environmental crises, such as extreme poverty, necropolitical violence, biodiversity collapse, and more. With a focus on the emancipation of marginalized groups facing an epistemic assault born of colonial conquest and white supremacy intent on preserving their dominance, this book delves into theoretical analyses of the onto-epistemological impacts of such hegemony. It questions the seemingly mundane and neutral concepts at the heart of apocalyptic narratives such as “world,” “end,” or “aftermath.” Consequently, this book produces discourse regarding the ontological nature of what is typically understood as “the world,” encompassing both a metaphysical principle and the various worlds implied by this concept. Also, the question of who is the being for whom the ending world is meaningful, the worldly being who determines what constitutes its end? Namely, prioritizing certain lives over others involves an apocalyptic logic that deeply influences how belonging within the world is allocated. This anthology is recommended for scholars and activists interested in the application of post-colonial theories in the study of apocalypticism.