The End of Time
is May eBook of the Month

Award-winning astronomer Anthony Aveni explores the Maya Mystery of 2012.

The Internet, bookshelves, and movie theaters are full of prophecies, theories, and predictions that December 21, 2012 marks the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. Whether the end will result from the magnetic realignment of the north and south poles, bringing floods, earthquakes, death, and destruction; or from the return of alien caretakers to enlighten or enslave us; or from a global awakening, a sudden evolution of Homo sapiens into non-corporeal beings—theories of great, impending changes abound.

In The End of Time, NetLibrary’s May eBook of the Month, award-winning astronomer and Maya researcher Anthony Aveni explores these theories, explains their origins, and measures them objectively against evidence unearthed by Maya archaeologists, iconographers, and epigraphers. He probes the latest information astronomers and earth scientists have gathered on the likelihood of Armageddon and the oft-proposed link between the Maya Long Count cycle and the precession of the equinoxes. He then expands on these prophecies to include the broader context of how other cultures, ancient and modern, thought about the "end of things" and speculates on why cataclysmic events in human history have such a strong appeal within American pop culture.

Provided through the generous support of University Press of Colorado, The End of Time will be available to Macomb County Reference and Research Center patrons May 1-31. If you have already established a NetLibrary account through Macomb County Reference and Research Center, visit www.netLibrary.org and log in.  If you do not have a NetLibrary account, you can create an account from any reference center computer.  For more information about NetLibrary or other services available through Macomb County Reference and Research Center, please contact your librarian.

About the Author

Anthony Aveni is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy, Anthropology, and Native American Studies at Colgate University. He has researched and written about Maya Astronomy for more than four decades. He was named a U.S. National Professor of the year and has been awarded the H.B. Nicholson Medal for Excellence in Research in Mesoamerican Studies by Harvard's Peabody Museum.

About University Press of Colorado

Founded in 1965, the University Press of Colorado is a nonprofit cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State College, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Mesa State College, Metropolitan State College of Denver, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, and Western State College of Colorado. The Press publishes thirty to thirty-five new titles each year, with the goal of facilitating communication among scholars and providing the peoples of the state and region with a fair assessment of their histories, cultures, and resources. The Press has extended the reach and reputation of our supporting institutions and has made scholarship of the highest level in many diverse fields widely available.

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