Richard Landes was trained as a medievalist at Princeton University (MA 1979, PhD 1984). His historical work focuses on apocalyptic beliefs and millennial movements (Heaven on Earth, 2011), initially around the year 1000 (Peace of God, 1986; Relics, Apocalypse and the Deceits of History, 1996; Apocalyptic Year 1000, 2003). Landes developed the concept of “demotic religiosity,” an orientation that prizes equality before the law, dignity of manual labor, access to sacred texts for all believers, and moral integrity over social honor. From 1995-2003, he was director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University.
Since 2000, he has increasingly focused on contemporary movements (Paranoid Apocalypse, 2011), especially Global Jihad and the feckless democratic response to its challenge, starting with the coverage of the “Al Aqsa Intifada” in late 2000. He produced a series of documentaries in 2005/6 entitled “According to Palestinian Sources…”, which document the extensive staging of footage (Pallywood), the staging of the Al Durah “murder” (Making of an Icon), and the impact of that fake, broadcast as “news” by Western news media (Icon of Hatred). His blog “The Augean Stables” (2005-present) and twitter feed (@richard_landes) deal largely with the ways in which Western news media fuel Jihad, especially in their coverage of the Middle East conflict. His forthcoming book, Can the “Whole World” be Wrong? A Medievalist’s Guide to the 21st Century is scheduled to be released by Academic Studies Press in 2021.
In 2015 he retired from Boston University where he was a Professor in the History Department. He lives happily with his wife in Jerusalem, where he can write free of politically-correct pressures. He looks forward to the day when he can return to his medieval work (While God Tarried: Disappointed Millennialism from Jesus to the Peace of God, 33-1033), and eventually work on his commentary on the Demotic Bible, an analysis of the ways the biblical text promotes demotic religiosity, and the way that a secularization of that religiosity contributed to the emergence of the modern world.
Those observing the events of October 7th and its aftermath with alarm (rather than joy), may find themselves in a situation described by millennial scholars as “cognitive dissonance.” In their reading of reality, what was now happening could not happen. Hamas had shown a level of savagery that [...]
In the 21st century, an ominous paradox developed: on the one hand, progressives increasingly demanded the banishing of hate speech, in some cases down to micro-aggressions. And yet within this increasingly severe approach, Islam became a double exception to the rule. Islamist hate speech did not count; negative [...]
