Historical Atlas of World Mythology
by Joseph Campbell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Joseph CampbellEdition: Hardcover
Published: 1988-09
ISBN: 999149961X
Publisher: Harpercollins
Book Reviews of Historical Atlas of World Mythology
Book Review: ...of the creme de la creme...
Summary: 5 Stars
I couldn't help but to notice that A CUSTOMER as of the date of this offering (writer of the wonderful essay above) has received only a 55 out of 56 approval rating since 1999.
Tsk, tsk.
I establish my credentials: I have been a maintenance man for a variety of McDonald's restaurants since 1986, educated at UC Berkeley and North Seattle Community College. After jumping off the psychological cliff along with many other practitioners of the "turn on, tune in, drop out" class of 1970, I one day six years later found myself weak and close to death, and then made the big mistake that would find me lost and tangled up in my own psychology for almost a quarter-century. I tell that tale in an autobiography entitled, Growing Up in America: The Inside Story. Upon my recovery in early 2000, I found myself reading many books and watching many videos by and about Joseph Campbell, concluding the bulk of my exposure last year when I finished The Historical Atlas of World Mythology, whereupon I moved on to other things--Stewart Brand and The Long Now Foundation for example.
The Atlas is not something I'd recommend to the average Jane or Joe vacationing a Jersey shore. It is a book for students of life ( ...and archeologists, and geographers, and psychologists, and etc.) by a master of the genre. There's a lot more to Campbell's mythology than just mythology, and that is what sets his work apart. Although anybody willing to put something into it will certainly get something back, I'd recommend other Campbell material first before tackling this one.
I ordered the work piecemeal, The Way of the Animal Powers parts I and II in one hardcover volume, and The Way of the Seeded Earth in three separate books, the first hard covered, and the last two soft. One might question why I'd bring this matter up, but it is relevant because the work in its entirety is physically less than convenient to tote around, similar perhaps to Jung's Red Book, but more so, totaling something close to 15 pounds. (The Red Book is less than 10.)
Although the work in its originally intended entirety has been left unfinished, the product offered stands tall to this day as a mature part of the ground work for a mythologically-oriented theory of everything. I found Parts II and III of Seeded Earth especially enlightening concerning the formation from ancient times of the cultures of North and South America. The anthropologist, Wade Davis, Explorer-in-Residence at The National Geographic Society, has done some notable follow-up in this area.
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