Brandon Marriott – författare

In 1644, the news that Antonio de Montezinos claimed to have discovered the Lost Tribes of Israel in the jungles of South America spread across Europe fuelling an already febrile atmosphere of messianic and millenarian expectation. By tracing the process in which one set of apocalyptic ideas was transmitted across the Christian and Islamic worlds, this book provides fresh insight into the origin and transmission of eschatological constructs, and the resulting beliefs that blurred traditional religious boundaries and identities. Beginning with an investigation of the impact of Montezinos’s narrative, the next chapter follows the story to England, examining how the Quaker messiah James Nayler was viewed in Europe. The third chapter presents the history of the widely reported - but wholly fictitious - story of the sack of Mecca, a rumour that was spread alongside news of Sabbatai Sevi. The final chapter looks at Christian responses to the Sabbatian movement, providing a detailed discussion of the cross-religious and international representations of the messiah. The conclusion brings these case studies together, arguing that the evolving beliefs in the messiah and the Lost Tribes between 1648 and 1666 can only be properly understood by taking into account the multitude of narrative threads that moved between networks of Jews, Conversos, Catholics and Protestants from one side of the Atlantic to the far side of the Mediterranean and back again. By situating this transmission in a broader historical context, the book reveals the importance of early-modern crises, diasporas and newsgathering networks in generating the eschatological constructs, disseminating them on an international scale, and transforming them through this process of intercultural dissemination into complex new hybrid religious conceptions, expectations, and identities.

In 1644, the news that Antonio de Montezinos claimed to have discovered the Lost Tribes of Israel in the jungles of South America spread across Europe fuelling an already febrile atmosphere of messianic and millenarian expectation. By tracing the process in which one set of apocalyptic ideas was transmitted across the Christian and Islamic worlds, this book provides fresh insight into the origin and transmission of eschatological constructs, and the resulting beliefs that blurred traditional religious boundaries and identities. Beginning with an investigation of the impact of Montezinos’s narrative, the next chapter follows the story to England, examining how the Quaker messiah James Nayler was viewed in Europe. The third chapter presents the history of the widely reported - but wholly fictitious - story of the sack of Mecca, a rumour that was spread alongside news of Sabbatai Sevi. The final chapter looks at Christian responses to the Sabbatian movement, providing a detailed discussion of the cross-religious and international representations of the messiah. The conclusion brings these case studies together, arguing that the evolving beliefs in the messiah and the Lost Tribes between 1648 and 1666 can only be properly understood by taking into account the multitude of narrative threads that moved between networks of Jews, Conversos, Catholics and Protestants from one side of the Atlantic to the far side of the Mediterranean and back again. By situating this transmission in a broader historical context, the book reveals the importance of early-modern crises, diasporas and newsgathering networks in generating the eschatological constructs, disseminating them on an international scale, and transforming them through this process of intercultural dissemination into complex new hybrid religious conceptions, expectations, and identities.

In 1644, the news that Antonio de Montezinos claimed to have discovered the Lost Tribes of Israel in the jungles of South America spread across Europe fuelling an already febrile atmosphere of messianic and millenarian expectation. By tracing the process in which one set of apocalyptic ideas was transmitted across the Christian and Islamic worlds, this book provides fresh insight into the origin and transmission of eschatological constructs, and the resulting beliefs that blurred traditional religious boundaries and identities. Beginning with an investigation of the impact of Montezinos’s narrative, the next chapter follows the story to England, examining how the Quaker messiah James Nayler was viewed in Europe. The third chapter presents the history of the widely reported - but wholly fictitious - story of the sack of Mecca, a rumour that was spread alongside news of Sabbatai Sevi. The final chapter looks at Christian responses to the Sabbatian movement, providing a detailed discussion of the cross-religious and international representations of the messiah. The conclusion brings these case studies together, arguing that the evolving beliefs in the messiah and the Lost Tribes between 1648 and 1666 can only be properly understood by taking into account the multitude of narrative threads that moved between networks of Jews, Conversos, Catholics and Protestants from one side of the Atlantic to the far side of the Mediterranean and back again. By situating this transmission in a broader historical context, the book reveals the importance of early-modern crises, diasporas and newsgathering networks in generating the eschatological constructs, disseminating them on an international scale, and transforming them through this process of intercultural dissemination into complex new hybrid religious conceptions, expectations, and identities.

In 1644, the news that Antonio de Montezinos claimed to have discovered the Lost Tribes of Israel in the jungles of South America spread across Europe fuelling an already febrile atmosphere of messianic and millenarian expectation. By tracing the process in which one set of apocalyptic ideas was transmitted across the Christian and Islamic worlds, this book provides fresh insight into the origin and transmission of eschatological constructs, and the resulting beliefs that blurred traditional religious boundaries and identities. Beginning with an investigation of the impact of Montezinos’s narrative, the next chapter follows the story to England, examining how the Quaker messiah James Nayler was viewed in Europe. The third chapter presents the history of the widely reported - but wholly fictitious - story of the sack of Mecca, a rumour that was spread alongside news of Sabbatai Sevi. The final chapter looks at Christian responses to the Sabbatian movement, providing a detailed discussion of the cross-religious and international representations of the messiah. The conclusion brings these case studies together, arguing that the evolving beliefs in the messiah and the Lost Tribes between 1648 and 1666 can only be properly understood by taking into account the multitude of narrative threads that moved between networks of Jews, Conversos, Catholics and Protestants from one side of the Atlantic to the far side of the Mediterranean and back again. By situating this transmission in a broader historical context, the book reveals the importance of early-modern crises, diasporas and newsgathering networks in generating the eschatological constructs, disseminating them on an international scale, and transforming them through this process of intercultural dissemination into complex new hybrid religious conceptions, expectations, and identities.

An incredibly evocative and action-filled story of one man’s fight in the First World War, rich and raw with remarkable detail.As he tended to the chores on his homestead, Lester Harper never imagined that he would turn in his hoe for a Lee-Enfield rifle on the Western Front. But the farmer from Pouce Coupe, in northern British Columbia, found himself at a party agreeing to help form a small-town regiment headed for France and the Great War. Lester left behind his wife, Mabel, in the shadow of the loss of their infant daughter, Hilda. A marksman before he even volunteered for the Canadian Army, Lester joined his cousin and friends, thousands of miles from his home, mere yards from the bayonets, bullets, and gas bombs of the feared Boche. In Till We Meet Again, the First World War comes to life in unprecedented detail, drawing on Lester’s letters as well as meticulous historical research. Not since Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Tim Cook’s magisterial works about the First World War, or Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front has a book about a soldier’s life at the sharp end been told with such humour, gravitas, and in a heart-pounding narrative that drops you behind enemy lines. For at one point, Lester was trapped in a shell hole, a heartbeat away from the Germans setting up their machine gun to mow down his comrades. This is a remarkable story, remarkably told. This book will be heralded by historians as a new approach to telling a soldier’s story and will become beloved by readers of military history and anyone who wants to understand what life was like for our boys behind the wire.

An incredibly evocative and action-filled story of one man’s fight in the First World War, rich and raw with remarkable detail.As he tended to the chores on his homestead, Lester Harper never imagined that he would turn in his hoe for a Lee-Enfield rifle on the Western Front. But the farmer from Pouce Coupe, in northern British Columbia, found himself at a party agreeing to help form a small-town regiment headed for France and the Great War. Lester left behind his wife, Mabel, in the shadow of the loss of their infant daughter, Hilda. A marksman before he even volunteered for the Canadian Army, Lester joined his cousin and friends, thousands of miles from his home, mere yards from the bayonets, bullets, and gas bombs of the feared Boche. In Till We Meet Again, the First World War comes to life in unprecedented detail, drawing on Lester’s letters as well as meticulous historical research. Not since Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Tim Cook’s magisterial works about the First World War, or Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front has a book about a soldier’s life at the sharp end been told with such humour, gravitas, and in a heart-pounding narrative that drops you behind enemy lines. For at one point, Lester was trapped in a shell hole, a heartbeat away from the Germans setting up their machine gun to mow down his comrades. This is a remarkable story, remarkably told. This book will be heralded by historians as a new approach to telling a soldier’s story and will become beloved by readers of military history and anyone who wants to understand what life was like for our boys behind the wire.