A Brief History of the End of the F*cking World

Do you feel like we’re living in the end times? Does it seem like everything is on fire, and one disaster follows another? Here’s a small comfort – you’re not the first to feel that way. If there’s one thing that people throughout the ages have agreed on, it’s that history wasn’t going to be around much longer. International bestseller Tom Phillips (author of Humans; Truth; and Conspiracy) is back with a fascinating look at armageddon through the ages and humankind’s obsession with doomsday.

Festival stalwart Andrew Davey will be in conversation with Tom, discussing how we live in a world where catastrophe is always looming – whether it's a madman with a nuclear button or the slow burn of environmental collapse. Because when we talk about the end of the world, what we really mean is the end of our world. Our obsession with doomsday is really about change: our fear of it, and our desire for it, and how – ultimately – we can find hope in it.

Tom Phillips is the former editor of Full Fact, Britain's leading independent fact-checking organisation. Previously he was the editorial director of BuzzFeed UK.