ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces contemporary sites and assemblages related to our fears of nuclear annihilation, which call nuclear armageddonism, although it could equally be termed nuclear eschatology or any other equivalency. The new religious movements (NRMs), being a product of the 20th-century experience, and a reaction to the perceived experience of the 20th century, contained a notable enculturation of armageddonism and total social collapse. The niche that the heritage of nuclear armageddonism inhabits is, to be frank, relatively unexplored territory. In a broad sense, the field of NRMs is a goldmine of heritage-related information and an asset to humanity as a whole. The flourishing and variety of NRMs during the Cold War period is a testament to the widespread uptake of a modernist concept of the self, an individual understood as an agent of change, able to question the socially accepted institutions of religion and social organisation.
