Collectively we have never known more about ourselves, our past and the natural world, but individually we are cruelly fated to perceive it through the Baudrillardian hall of mirrors that is the internet. Surrounding by an informational expanse that would take many lifetimes to parse let alone fathom, the old gatekeepers of knowledge — be they banks, religious leaders, journalists, politicians or even scientists — are suffering a catastrophic crisis of legitimacy, leaving the multitudes to dive into the abyss of data to see for themselves. E.O.Wilson describes the situation as “drowning in information while starving for wisdom” and in place of wisdom, we are drawn to mirages of narrative coherence. As we are bombarded with hashtags of ominous portent — apocalyptic fires, epidemics and the looming spectre of war — fringe movements of strangeness and intensity have come to dominate and polarise public discourse, each attempting to hijack the reigns of power and shape the historical narrative. Some promising a return to the safety of an idyllic past, others wanting to sweep the past away to lead us to a future world of where hierarchies have been banished private property abolished.

To the historian, this all looks eerily familiar. Beginning with the invention of the printing press in 15th century Europe a similar explosion of information occurred, leading to massive growth in literacy and artistic and intellectual ferment, but also political turmoil, extremism and polarisation. It was a time of society-wide confusion — from the Latin confusionem meaning to mingle and muddle together — of different theological perspectives at first, then more and more fragments of news, rumour and scaremongering from across Christendom and the expanding world. Suddenly the seemingly eternal certainties of Church doctrine began to crumble, leading to peasant rebellions, uprisings and civil wars. As the legitimacy of popes, kings and statesmen imploded and wars and schisms multiplied, there came to be a growing sense that the world was falling apart and that a new one was on the cusp of being born.

Amidst this turbulence, prophecies went viral — with whole swathes of the population coming to the belief that the reason for the chaos was the imminence of Christ’s return to establish His eternal kingdom. Radical movements appeared from nowhere and came to guide the fates of cities and nations, transforming the history of Europe and ultimately reshaping culture and human cognition.