Introduction

Abstract

Millenarianism has been too often dismissed as a creed for cranks. When Sylvia Thrupp brought together an important collection of comparative studies on this theme in 1962, Millennial Dreams in Action, she noted the traditional heavy bias in the literature of the subject towards ‘the more dramatic types of movement, those that alarm civil and religious authorities or openly clash with them’. But she was impressed, on the contrary, by the normalcy of millennial movements; that, for instance, the recent history of Brazil demonstrated that ‘a belief that the end of the world is imminent may cause excitement and call for certain decisive actions, without any spirit of anxiety’.