This volume is a reprint of Millennial Fever (1993) with some updates in the last chapter. George Knight, formerly professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, is one of Adventism’s leading historians and a most prolific author.

The fifteen chapters of the book are divided into three parts: Moving Toward the Year of the End [1843-4], The Year of the End, and Moving Away from the Year of the End. Chapter one sketches briefly the historical background to the rise of Millerism, setting the stage for what follows. The next four chapters provide biographical sketches of William Miller, Joshua V. Himes, Josiah Litch, Charles Fitch and several other Millerite leaders.

The second part chronicles the events during 1843 and 1844, including the 1844 spring disappointment, the true midnight cry at the Exeter camp meeting in the month of August, and the great disappointment on October 22, 1844. The third section describes the aftermath of the great disappointment; the rise of the spiritualizers and other aberrant Adventist groups, the Albany conference in 1845, and the appearance of Sabbatarian Adventists.

The concluding chapter, “Millerism at 170,” briefly traces the history of the six denominations that arose out of the Millerite movement. It analyzes the “why” of the success of Millerism and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the largest of the churches spawned by the Millerite movement, and suggests that, in spite of the tremendous growth of the Adventist Church, all is not well with it. He points out some of the challenges facing the church, such as loss of faith in its distinctive doctrines, and concludes with the warning that “to deny its prophetic heritage is a certain way to kill its ‘millennial passion’” (p. 290).

Knight’s book is a well-written, comprehensive history of the Millerite movement portraying its promoters not as heretics or lunatics, but as people eagerly waiting for the imminent return of Jesus. The author dealt with the material more in a topical way rather than purely chronologically which at times results in some overlap of material. Nevertheless, the book is essential reading for those interested in the Millerite movement and the rise of Sabbatarian Adventists. It draws heavily on primary sources, each chapter has copious endnotes, and a fairly detailed index makes it easy to check on specific events or people.

In the last chapter, Knight looks at factors contributing to the success of Millerism and the Seventh-day Adventist Church, one of which is “its sense of prophetic mission and the sense of urgency generated by that prophetic understanding” (p. 283). While this is certainly true for both movements, in the case of the Seventh-day Adventist Church God’s guidance through the prophetic ministry of Ellen G. White was even more important. Unfortunately, this factor is missing in Knight’s book. Without the input of Ellen G. White’s ministry the Seventh-day Adventist Church today would probably be an insignificant Christian church like the Advent Christian Church with its 25,000 members worldwide, or have long ago ceased to exist like the American Evangelical Adventist Church both of which trace their origins back to the Millerite movement. The fact that the Seventh-day Adventist Church today has more than 17 million baptized members is one of the evidences of God’s leading in the history of this church.