Mythology The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth and Storytelling

It's impossible to fit every myth from every part of the world into one book, but the editors did an admirable job in collecting various myths and organizing them in this book. The myths are concise and the book is easy to read due to its excellent organization and its lovely pictures. For anyone wishing to learn about world mythology or just one country's tales, this is a wonderful introduction. This book has a treasured place on my bookshelf, and for good reason.

A reference book of this quality is an excellent addition to your reference library... especially if you are the type of person who likes to understand other's at a deep level. Whatever your subject, students of many different topics would also find this an indispensable title to have in your library. With more than 700 colour photographs and nearly 700 pages of information-packed pages to look through, `Mythology' is an excellent value reference book to add to your collection. Even though there is a lot of information presented in this book, it is set out in a way that makes it easy to find the information you are looking for. The chapters are set out in the following structure: 1. Meaning of Myth 2. Cradles of Civilisation Egypt's Divine Kingship Ancient Mesopotamia The Glories of Greece and Rome 3. The Celtic, Viking and Germanic Worlds Celtic Deities and Heroes Sagas of the Norsemen 4. The Eastern World India's Eternal Cycle China's Heavenly Mandate Japan's Realm of the Rising Sun 5. The New World North America's Mother Earth, Father Sky Mesoamerica's Gods of Sun and Sacrifice South American Kingdoms of Gold 6. The Southern World The Ancestral Voices of Africa The Unseen Worlds of Australiasia If you are not sure which section your myth belongs to you can always use the index, which is very well set out too. I would recommend `Mythology' as a reference book for artists, writers, those of your involved in religious studies and/or readers who just have a curious mind!

Yes, this is a "coffee table book." And yes, it is huge and heavy. But then, it would have to be to cover so much material and to include so many beautiful illustrations.Before I get into the "meat" of the book, I'd like to discuss the illustrations. It is difficult to imagine the amount of study and research it must have taken to find these illustrations. They range from thousand year old papyrus illustrations to frescoes to ancient pottery, to antique stone and jade carvings to statuary and on and on. They come from a myriad of ancient cultures and sources. If there were no text in MYTHOLOGY, it would be worth owning just for the art work.But text there is! The text is broken down by geographical area, and by culture within that area. Also included, are maps where appropriate. For instance, the locations of the labors of Herakles (Hercules to the Romans) which I will discuss further later.From the standpoint of depth of detail, this is not a scholarly reference. Rather, it is the work of good story tellers, for, after all, the ancient myths were good stories. By this I mean that the book is aimed at the layman (like me), and wherever you open it at random, you will find a great tale of ancient gods, monsters, giants, heroes, and just plain humans. These tales have come down through time, some predating the advent of writing. MYTHOLOGY opens with a general discussion of mythology, comparing myths with magic mirrors which reflect the hopes and fears of ancient civilizations, and often, those of our civilization, today. Mythological tales, we are told, form the basis of much of the world's literature, philosophy and religion.As I mentioned, MYTHOLOGY makes wonderful reading, last night I opened it randomly to the section on Herakles and spent a wonderful half an hour or so reading about Herakles and his labors, the lustiness of some gods, the pettiness of others, and the good and the deceitful sides of men. All that in thirty minutes.Pick a mythological character be he god or monster, hero or human, and the chances are good that you will find him here.