Reviews
"An excellent and much needed anthology. I wish it had been availablewhen I was teaching folklore and mythology courses but unfortunately I expect toretire this summer. Leeming has produced the perfect textual base for a coursein Comparative Mythology."--Prof. W.F.H. Nicolaisen, SUNY Binghamton, "This book has exactly what I needed--a collection of myths of creation, flood, apocalypse. It's nicely put together and imexpensive--a boon to students with increasingly high book bills."--Laura C. Stevenson, Marlboro College, "An excellent addition to the material on myths. It is a good resourcebook for students in our Introductory to Religious Studies class and our WorldReligion class."--Marianne Ferguson, Buffalo State University, "A particularly fine one-volume work that not only draws from a wide variety of sources, but also puts them in a comparative context....Modern myths, such as the idea of Earth as Gaia, intermingle resonantly with their ancient counterparts. It's not just Zeus anymore, as this most usefulvolume makes abundantly clear."--Booklist, "An excellent textbook, especially in its skillful linking of thepsychological (Jungian) and the mythical."--Richard P. Jugg, FloridaInternational University, "This is a brilliant collection complemented by useful, insightful,engaging introductions. The best book for a comparative mythology course, andfor personal reading as well."--Elton A. Hall, Oxnard College, "A needed anthology of well-known stories from many cultures, useful inall sorts of classes."--John H. Wilson, Dakota Wesleyan University, "The selection of texts is efficaciously representative and includes ajudicious selection of dependable translations. It is very gratifying to notethe absence of unusable translations, such as those by Albert Cook or RobertFagles. This collection is almost ideally suited to the first segment of myComparative Mythology course and eliminates the need to require, at considerableexpense to students, the four books that had hitherto been needed for thissegment."--Roy Arthur Swanson, Univ. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, "An excellent anthology which breathes new life into a popular course oflong standing. A very good selection with excellent, intelligent, and clearintroductions to each section."--Friedrich P. Ott, University of Massachusetts,Boston, "A particularly fine one-volume work that not only draws from a wide variety of sources, but also puts them in a comparative context....Modern myths, such as the idea of Earth as Gaia, intermingle resonantly with their ancient counterparts. It's not just Zeus anymore, as this most useful volume makes abundantly clear."--Booklist, "My initial response after quickly skimming the text is that this is thetext I have been searching for to use in the Mythology course I have beenteaching for the last fifteen years. While the book contains an enormous amountof material, it still appears to be presented so that the beginning mythologystudent can assimilate the bulk of it. I am impressed with the work."--LouiseAckley, Boise State University, "Best one-volume combination of original or well-translated texts;explanations of archetypes; background on scholarship in the field;bibliographies for futher study; and directions to modern literary examplars ofmythic themes, characters, and motifs."--Michele Cheung, Columbia College