End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate

Famine. Extreme climate change. Threats of global war and nuclear annihilation. Obscene wealth disparities. Is civilization destined for self-annihilation? In this timely book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills explores the emergencies that could ignite an apocalypse. As we idly stand by in the face of ecological, economic, and societal collapse, we must seriously question whether humanity is under the sway of a collective unconscious death wish. Examining ominous existential risks and drawing on the psychological motivations, unconscious conflicts, and cultural complexes that drive human behavior and social relations, he offers fresh new perspectives on the looming fate of humanity based on a collective bystander disorder.

End of the World is a warning about the dangerous precipice we find ourselves careening toward and a call to action to take control of our own fate.

Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, ABPP is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, and clinical psychologist. He is Honorary Professor, Department of Psychosocial & Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex, UK, on Faculty in the Postgraduate Programs in Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy, Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, Adelphi University, USA, and on Faculty and is a Supervising Analyst at the New School for Existential Psychoanalysis, USA. Recipient of numerous awards for his scholarship including 5 Gradiva Awards, he is the author and/or editor of over 30 books in psychoanalysis, philosophy, psychology, and cultural studies including most recently Psyche, Culture, World. In 2015 he was given the Otto Weininger Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Canadian Psychological Association.