A Short History of Myth (Myths series)

Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307367290
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
What are myths? How have they evolved? And why do we still so desperately need them? A history of myth is a history of humanity, Karen Armstrong argues in this insightful and eloquent book: our stories and beliefs, our curiosity and attempts to understand the world, link us to our ancestors and each other. This is a brilliant and thought-provoking introduction to myth in the broadest sense–from Palaeolithic times to the “Great Western Transformation” of the last 500 years–and why we dismiss it only at our peril.

A History of God

Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: Gramercy
ISBN: 9780517223123
Category : God
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A study of the deity of the world's three dominant monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In a dynamic interplay between religion and society's ever-changing beliefs, values, and traditions, human beings' ideas about God have been transformed. Ideas about God have been molded to apply to the spiritual needs of the people who worship him in a particular place and time. The author explores and analyzes the development and progression of the various perceptions of God from the days of Abraham to present times--Adapted from book jacket.

Myth

Author: Robert Alan Segal
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198724705
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
This Very Short Introduction explores different approaches to myth from several disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. In this new edition, Robert Segal considers both the future study of myth as well as the impact of areas such as cognitive science and the latest approaches to narrative theory.

National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology

Author:
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 9781426203732
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description
Conveniently sized yet large in scope, National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology an irresistible treasure to own and to give."--BOOK JACKET.

Weight

Author: Jeanette Winterson
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307367363
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
The story of Atlas and Heracles Atlas knows how it feels to carry the weight of the world; but why, he asks himself, does it have to be carried at all? In Weight — visionary and inventive, yet completely believable and relevant to the questions we ask ourselves every day — Winterson’s skill in turning the familiar on its head to show us a different truth is put to stunning effect. When I was asked to choose a myth to write about, I realized I had chosen already. The story of Atlas holding up the world was in my mind before the telephone call had ended. If the call had not come, perhaps I would never have written the story, but when the call did come, that story was waiting to be written. Rewritten. The recurring language motif of Weight is “I want to tell the story again.” My work is full of Cover Versions. I like to take stories we think we know and record them differently. In the retelling comes a new emphasis or bias, and the new arrangement of the key elements demands that fresh material be injected into the existing text. Weight moves far away from the simple story of Atlas’s punishment and his temporary relief when Hercules takes the world off his shoulders. I wanted to explore loneliness, isolation, responsibility, burden, and freedom too, because my version has a very particular end not found elsewhere. —from Jeanette Winterson’s Foreword to Weight

Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend

Author: Nancy Thomson de Grummond
Publisher: UPenn Museum of Archaeology
ISBN: 9781931707862
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Book Description
Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... "all relevant illustrations from the book, arranged in alphabetical order according to mythological character. To increase the usefulness of the [CD-ROM], supplementary images not in the book have been added[.]"--P. xv.

The Atlantis Story

Author: Pierre Vidal-Naquet
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
This is the history of the development through the ages of Plato's "Atlantis" story - the imperialist island state that disappeared in a cataclysm, leaving Athens to survive it...Instead of simply focusing on the various attempts to 'find' Atlantis - all of which are futile for the very good reason that Plato made the island up - the author re-examines the very different uses made of the myth in different contexts and periods. He shows how Plato's myth was reinterpreted in the medieval period and after through conflation with the search for the lost tribes of Israel; how it became involved with the debate about whether Europe should look back to its origins in the Classical or Biblical worlds; how the myth was reinterpreted with a more geographical emphasis following Columbus' discovery of America; and how it was used in the "Enlightenment" to add colour to nationalist attempts to claim antiquity by finding unrecognised origins. Written in a clear and interesting way, Pierre Vidal-Naquet's original ideas rest on deep knowledge supported by primary references and illustrations.

Age of Myth

Author: Michael J. Sullivan
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 1101965347
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
One of fantasy’s finest next-generation storytellers continues to break new ground. Michael J. Sullivan’s trailblazing career began with the breakout success of his Riyria series: full-bodied, spellbinding fantasy adventures whose imaginative scope and sympathetic characters won a devoted readership and comparisons to fantasy masters Brandon Sanderson, Scott Lynch, and J.R.R. Tolkien himself. Now Age of Myth inaugurates an original five-book series. Since time immemorial, humans have worshipped the gods they call Fhrey, truly a race apart: invincible in battle, masters of magic, and seemingly immortal. But when a god falls to a human blade, the balance of power between humans and those they thought were gods changes forever. Now only a few stand between humankind and annihilation: Raithe, reluctant to embrace his destiny as the God Killer; Suri, a young seer burdened by signs of impending doom; and Persephone, who must overcome personal tragedy to lead her people. The Age of Myth is over. The time of rebellion has begun. Magic, fantasy, and mythology collide in Michael J. Sullivan’s Legends of the First Empire series: AGE OF MYTH • AGE OF SWORDS • AGE OF WAR

The Cry for Myth

Author: Rollo May
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393240770
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
Here are case studies in which myths have helped Dr. May's patients make sense out of an often senseless world. It happens almost daily in a therapist's office. A patient, recalling a person, an event, an emotion, quite unexpectedly supplies a link from a life in the present to one of the durable myths of our culture. In this moment, the myth becomes a mirror, revealing to the patient the source of disturbance and pain in a pattern of behavior that often stretches a year or longer. The healing process begins. The myth, "eternity breaking into time" in Rollo Mays's words, becomes the focal point of recovery. Through tracing myths – whether from classical Greece and Dante's Middle Ages, European legend (Faust and the prototype of Sleeping Beauty), or contemporary American life (Jay Gatsby) -- and relating them to the dreams and associations he encounters in his own practice, Dr. May provides meaning and structure for all who seek direction in a morally confusing world. In this, perhaps the finest achievement of a great therapist, Rollo May writes with "the grace, wit, and style: for which he recently received the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Society.

History and Myth: Postcolonial Dimensions

Author: Arti Nirmal
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1648893406
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
This anthology, 'History and Myth: Postcolonial Dimensions', seeks to interrogate and dismantle the colonially structured symmetrical interpretations of the histories and mythological narratives of the former European colonies through depolarization, pluriversality, and border thinking. Here, the concepts of history and myth have been addressed from different perspectives and spatiotemporal zones by scholars from different parts of the world, which add to the global value of the book. It has been argued in this volume that the understanding of postcolonial histories and myths in the contemporary era is highly influenced by the colonially fashioned binaries: valid/ invalid, civilized/barbaric, inclusive/exclusive, relevant/irrelevant, good/bad, etc., which continue to preserve the epistemic citadels of coloniality and selectively promote such historical and mythological narratives that celebrate the superiority of the Global North and the inferiority of the Global South. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, researchers, teachers, and those interested in understanding history, postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, cultural studies, literature, and sociology.