We Survived the End of the World

Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope

De: Steven Charleston

Narrado por: Jason Grasl

From the moment European settlers reached these shores, the American apocalypse began. But Native Americans did not vanish. Apocalypse did not fully destroy them, and it doesn't have to destroy us.

Pandemics and war, social turmoil and corrupt governments, natural disasters and environmental collapse—it's hard not to watch the signs of the times and feel afraid. But we can journey through that fear to find hope. With the warnings of a prophet and the lively voice of a storyteller, Choctaw elder and author of Ladder to the Light Steven Charleston speaks to all who sense apocalyptic dread rising around and within.

You'd be hard pressed to find an apocalypse more total than the one Native America has confronted for more than four hundred years. Yet Charleston's ancestors are a case study in the liberating and hopeful survival of a spiritual community. Charleston points to four Indigenous prophets who helped their people learn strategies for surviving catastrophe. Through gestures such as turning the culture upside down, finding a fixed place on which to stand, listening to what the earth is saying, and dancing a ghostly vision into being, these prophets helped their people survive. These ancestors' words reach across centuries to help us live through apocalypse today with courage and dignity.

©2023 Steven Charleston (P)2024 Tantor

The real, academic, yet invitational message

This is the kind of book we urgently need today. It brings the reality of the moment together with the reality of response. Rather than either a rant or a fluffy New Age type distraction, Charleston grounds us in his presentation from his experience, knowledge, heritage, and historical context as a model for all people to unveil and confront what seems like the end of our world. Simple, practical and motivating.

Inspiring and hopeful.

This is a must read. Thank you Steven Charleston. The wisdom shared in this book is much needed.

A very hopeful story of reconciliation

I wish more people would read books like this that give us as humans a path towards reconciliation and a peaceful existence in which we care for the earth. Anyone who wants to improve their spirituality, and be exposed to differing
Viewpoints should read this book.

Relevant Any Time, Any Place

If you are remotely interested in what an enduring prophetic spiritual experience is and how important apocalyptic thinking is you have to listen to this book. Jason Grasl does and excellent job narrating what seems to me to be a challenging text with lots of Native American names and places. Even if you aren't into Native American Spirituality you will learn something about whatever tradition you practice and you apply the principles that the author lays out. Thank you Bishop Charleston.

Relevant for Today

The book offered a unique perspective on the American past from the native people’s experience. It points to a common future in which we must reconcile history with our need to build relationship with all of the human family.

I didn’t care for the narrator’s flat and rushed delivery.