Millenarianism, known also as millennialism, is the belief that the end of this world is at hand and that in its wake will appear a New World, inexhaustibly fertile, harmonious, sanctified, and just. The more exclusive the concern with the End itself,...

Millenarianism (sometimes spelled millenarism or millennarism) is the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society after which all things will be changed in a positive (or sometimes negative...

LONGING FOR THE END: A HISTORY OF MILLENNIALISM IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION. By Frederic J. Baumgartner. St Martin's; 288 pages; $26.95. Macmillan; Pounds30. MESSIANIC REVOLUTION: RADICAL RELIGIOUS POLITICS TO THE END OF THE SECOND MILLENNIUM. By David S. Katz and Richard H. Popkin....

Grant Underwood. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1993. 213 pp. $24.95. As Grant Underwood notes in his introduction, the last thirty years have seen a flowering of the historical study of Mormonism, mainly the work of younger scholars (both Mormon and non-Mormon)...

Iraqi Shiites celebrated Tuesday the culmination of Ashoura, a major religious festival, a day after authorities said they killed the leader of a heavily armed cult of messianic Shiites intent on targeting pilgrims.The Iraqi army said it killed the leader of the heavily armed cult...

Accounts of the bloody battle near Najaf have produced more questions than answers, raising doubts about Iraqi security forces' performance and concern over tensions within the majority Shiite community.Among the questions: How did a messianic Shiite cult, the "Soldiers of Heaven," accumulate so many weapons...