This book is a study of eschatological thought among Bohemian Protestant intellectuals in the years before and after the Battle of White Mountain. The most well-known Bohemian intellectual figure at the time and since is Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), a member of the Bohemian Brethren who wrote innovative works on educational reform and theology. Urbánek's book examines the lives, connections, influences, and works of three, less well-known figures: Simon Partlicius, Paul Felgenauer, and Ondřej Habervešl of Habernfeld.

Born in 1590 in Třešť, a small town on the Bohemian-Moravian border, into a New Utraquist family, Partlicius attended the Lutheran Gymnasium in Zhořelec (Görlitz) in Upper Lusatia. In 1610, Partlicius went to study at Prague University and afterwards taught at schools and as a private tutor in Hradec Králové and Prague, accompanying his pupils to Rostock, Leipzig, and Wittenberg before going to Basel where he presented a dispute that led to the degree of doctor of medicine. The eschatological influences in the works of Partlicius and others can be seen in attempts to bring together biblical and secular chronology, astronomy, and astrology, and in chiliastic-inspired calls for reform and criticisms of worldly power. These influences can be found in most of Partlicius's works, but especially in his Metamorphosis mundi (1636), which provides a complex chronology of world history, and the Calendarium perpetuum oeconomicum (1618), which explains Emperor Ferdinand II's coronation and the Estate Revolt as a conjunction of astrological signs. According to Urbánek, Parlicius's work is representative of a scholarship well connected to and influenced by university circles. And he not only received and adapted ideas from intellectuals throughout Europe, but also brought them to a wider audience within Bohemia through his Czech-language works.

Felgenauer, in contrast, represents, according to Urbánek, “the most curious, oddest, but at the same time the most prolific figure” (104) of Bohemian Protestant intellectuals. Born in Buškovicích na Podbořansku into a German-speaking Lutheran family, Felgenhauer attended school in Annaberg (1604–1608) and then studied in Wittenberg. By 1619 he returned to Bohemia before being forced into exile three years later for his strong support of Friedrich of the Palatinate. Unlike Partlicius, Felgenhauer kept a distance from established scholarship, drawing inspiration instead from deeply mystical prophetic writings. Although his work, mostly pamphlets and treatises on apocalyptical-political subjects, did attract the attention of a few scholars his day, including Comenius, Johannes Kepler, and the Saxon court preacher, Matthias Hoë of Hoënegu, it remained unavailable to the general public and since then has received only marginal attention in historical, literary, and church histories.

Much better known is Habervešl of Habernfeld, who holds an honored place in encyclopedias and syntheses of history thanks to his Bellum Bohemicum, which was published in Leiden in 1640. Born into a wealthy Prague family at the end of the 1580s, Habervešl studied at Helmstedt, Basel, and Heidelberg, which earlier scholars viewed as evidence that Habervešl was a member of the Bohemian Brethren. However, Urbánek argues that adherents of other groups also studied in these places. By 1615, Habervešl returned to Prague and practiced medicine. There, according to Urbánek, he immersed himself in mystical occult writing and developed great interest in Rosecrucianism, which circulated in works of German intellectuals and was cultivated by the Bohemian physician Matyáš Borbonius. In the period before he left for exile and before the publication of his magnum opus, Habrvešl published pamphlets supporting Rosecrucian brethren and explaining the comet of 1618 and other apocalyptical events. Habervešl's work stands out, according to Urbánek, because it reveals a link between Rosecrucianism and the Bohemian evangelical movement.

Urbánek concludes that eschatological thought among exiles was not just the result of the extreme religious-political situation after 1620, but also drew on impulses found through Europe before White Mountain. Intellectual historians will be interested in the multifaceted connections and influences between these Bohemians and other European intellectuals. Those who do not read Czech will find of interest the extensive eighteen-page English summary and bibliography. Urbánek also concludes that eschatological themes at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War were not just part of a politicized confessional discourse, but also showed themselves in learned forms. This reader was more struck by the corollary: how the intellectual discourses were closely connected to and illuminated political-confessional developments. An excellent analysis of the semantics and symbols associated with the allegory of the Bohemian lion and Habsburg eagle and other discussions provide important contributions to political and cultural history of the early seventeenth century as well.