Het concept van een paradijs, een perfecte wereld dus, en verwant ermee de noties van een hemel, een einde der tijden, de apocalyps en de antipoden hel en verdoemenis zijn in zowat alle culturen terug te vinden. Kevin Rushby heeft ze geïnventariseerd, zowel in mythen, religies als seculiere ideologieën. Het beeld van de perfecte wereld begint volgens hem bij Pythagoras, in de 6de eeuw voor Christus en baande van daaruit zijn kronkelweg in alle mogelijke vormen. Volgens de auteur zijn de manieren waarop die perfecte wereld bereikt kan worden onder te brengen in 2 categorieën: die van de vreedzame, meestal spirituele weg van het individu dat zich aan religieuze of seculiere ethische regels houdt, en die van de gewelddadige, brutale weg, die gericht is op bewuste zuivering en met de holocaust en de zelfmoordterroristen als meest afschrikwekkende praktische omzetting.
Rushby gaat in elk geval erg breed, put uit heel veel culturen, kruidt zijn relaas met eigen reis-ervaringen en hanteert een erg vlotte, journalistieke pen. Maar zijn boek is een encyclopedische opeenstapeling, zonder veel relevantie. Ik begin stilaan genoeg te krijgen van thematische boeken die de hele wereldgeschiedenis vanuit 1 focus bekijken, de meeste ervan blijven erg aan de oppervlakte. ( )

A history of how paradise went through evolution from the original vague ideas to the much more developed modern ones that still manage to not have any agreement between those who believe in paradise. The author also details movements designed to create paradise on earth, concluding with the 21st century consumer 'paradise' in which you can buy happiness in the form of cheap plastic crap (my phrase, not his). One of the main downsides of this book is that the author attempts to do too much, and therefore ends up shortchanging some important aspects. I really think that Jim Jones and Joseph Smith each deserved more than just a brief drive-by mention, and the Heaven's Gate wasn't mentioned at all. The section on New Harmony was pathetic, since it didn't do much more than mention New Harmony before moving on to talk about what Robert Owen was doing as New Harmony was disintegrating. The section on eugenics was relevant to the topic of the book, but was covered in more detail than most other aspects, except the Third Reich. Both of these could have been covered with much less digression into other, non-paradise seeking behavior, and left some room to cover some of the millenarian sects of the late 20th century, as well as the various attempts by the early Mormons to discover the Garden of Eden in Iowa, or Missouri, or anywhere else, which was much more relevant to the topic than the somewhat more tangential eugenics or shopping mall topics. Overall, a book that is like the curate's egg. ( )

Worth a read, for sure. I'd read a fair bit about the religious stuff discussed early on, so it was more interesting to me when it talked about Columbus and the New World as the laboratory for fantasists of all kinds. Everything is dealt with in overview, but it's interesting and there's some nice personal asides which often serve to show how odd the idea of paradise is, how particular to a few cultures, albeit ones which have spread far and wide. ( )