In this first title in the release of the Historical Atlas of World Mythology — Digital Edition, Joseph Campbell begins his exploration of the development of myth across continents and millenniums. In the prologue, "The Mythological Dimension," he introduces his theme: the ways in which myth has served both a universal, unifying tool across cultures, and as a distinguishing factor between them.
The second half of this ebook is made up of creation myths — familiar and unfamiliar — from every inhabited corner of the the world, from Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and North, Central, and South America, which bring marvelously to light the burden of Campbell's thesis.
Joseph Campbell's multivolume Historical Atlas of World Mythology, his magnum opus, marked the culmination of his brilliant career as scholar, writer, teacher, and one of the foremost interpreters of our most sacred traditions.
Campbell described his work as an attempt to tell humankind's "One Great Story" — our saga of spiritual awakening and the subsequent development of the many different mythological perspectives that have shaped us throughout time. His central theme is that our seemingly disparate spiritual traditions are neither discrete nor unique, but rather each is simply an "ethnic manifestation" of one or another of those "elemental ideals" that have forever transfixed the human psyche.
The second half of this ebook is made up of creation myths — familiar and unfamiliar — from every inhabited corner of the the world, from Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and North, Central, and South America, which bring marvelously to light the burden of Campbell's thesis.
Joseph Campbell's multivolume Historical Atlas of World Mythology, his magnum opus, marked the culmination of his brilliant career as scholar, writer, teacher, and one of the foremost interpreters of our most sacred traditions.
Campbell described his work as an attempt to tell humankind's "One Great Story" — our saga of spiritual awakening and the subsequent development of the many different mythological perspectives that have shaped us throughout time. His central theme is that our seemingly disparate spiritual traditions are neither discrete nor unique, but rather each is simply an "ethnic manifestation" of one or another of those "elemental ideals" that have forever transfixed the human psyche.
