Customer Reviews

Mythology: A Visual Encyclopedia

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Myths vary by culture, even by adherent, yet there are always general characteristics common to every popular belief system, most of which are well-known by experts. Forty, however, is either ignorant of, or else ignores this, as evidenced by too many entries wherein he presents either unsupported suppositions as unquestioned truth (ie, Gimbutas' old "peaceful East European matriarchy was destroyed by evil male-dominated Proto-Indo-Europeans" notion), or out and out misstatements (referring to Papa Legba of Voudoun as being a "sun god", where in fact, according to EVERY OTHER SOURCE I've examined, he is instead the "Opener of Ways", a sort of metaphysical key to the world of the gods). Since I noted these two and a few other errors, I thus find myself questioning his statements on other gods and concepts with which I am less familiar. In fact, the only reason I didn't give this one star is that some of the pictures are excellent.