A Short History Of Myth

Download or read book A Short History of Myth (Myths series) written by Karen Armstrong and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-10-29 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book A History of God written by Karen Armstrong and published by Gramercy. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Myth written by Robert Alan Segal and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Weight written by Jeanette Winterson and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology written by and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conveniently sized yet large in scope, National Geographic Essential Visual History of World Mythology an irresistible treasure to own and to give."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Atlantis Story written by Pierre Vidal-Naquet and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book A Short History of Progress written by Ronald Wright and published by House of Anansi. This book was released on 2004 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.