Whenever we enter a new era, whenever the premises of our worldview are questioned or imperiled, Nostradamus offers certainty and solace. In 1666, guests at posh English dinner parties discussed his quatrains about the Great Fire of London. In 1942, the Jewish writer Irene Nemirovsky latched her hopes for survival in Nazi-occupied France to Nostradamus' prediction that the war would soon end. And on September 12, 2001, teenagers proclaimed on the streets of Brooklyn that "this guy, Nostradamus" had seen it coming. In his new book about this fascinating figure, Stephane Gerson takes readers on a journey through the life and after-life of Michel de Nostrademe, the Renaissance astrologer who became known as Nostradamus, the man whose Prophecies have been pored over, interpreted, and finally been transformed into "The Gospel of Doom" for the modern age. In moving beyond Nostrademe's life to chronicle the interest in his prophecies over the ages, Gerson's book chronicles not only the man himself, but the hold his predictions still have over us today.
