Great Mythologies of the World by Grant L. Voth, Julius H. Bailey, Kathryn McClymond, and Robert Andre LaFleur

Great Mythologies of the World by Grant L. Voth, Julius H. Bailey, Kathryn McClymond, and Robert Andre LaFleur

I broke with my usual practice of listening to a Great Courses book straight through and listened to this volume a few lectures at a time over the course of a year. The reason for that is that this book actually manages to give an overview of the basic myths of several dozen cultures, breaking them up mostly by geographic region, and the similarities between so many of the myths made them tend to blur together when I listened to too many at a time. It’s really quite remarkable how similar so many of the world’s myths are at their root. And in the same vein, it is also remarkable that there are so many distinctive differences.

 

When you get a book on myths, there is usually a great deal of focus on one particular mythos—Greek, Norse, Celtic, etc. In this book, the most any culture gets are a couple of lectures. The authors keep moving throughout their region, picking up new stories and showing what links them to others and also what makes them distinctive. It’s really a wonderful collection.