The Seven Story Tower: A Mythic Journey Through Space and Time [Paperback]

Curtiss Hoffman (Author), Ph.D. Curtiss Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2002

From the white stag to the green knight, The Seven Story Tower examines how myth colors our perception of history, nature, and ourselves. Organized around seven key myths-representing the Irish, Greek, Sumerian, Indonesian, Amazonian, and Inuit cultures, as well as the fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien-this book is the perfect intro-duction to the common themes found in world mythology. Curtiss Hoffman, a noted archaeologist and anthropologist, takes us beyond the entertaining stories and uses insights from cultural anthropology and analytical psychology to analyze the many common themes found throughout. In particular, he examines the significance of names, numbers, plants, animals, the heavenly bodies, and the human body. The Seven Story Tower will enhance the reader's appreciation of myth's power today over our lives and cultures.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Eloquent and passionate. The Seven Story Tower is an important and timely work." -- -Tyler Volk, Ph.D., Author, Metapatterns Across Space, Time, and Mind

About the Author

Curtiss Hoffman, Ph.D., is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Bridgewater State College. He is involved in archaeological research at eastern Massa-chusetts Native American sites and is Past President of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738205958
• ISBN-13: 978-0738205953
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #471,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars great myths, background but bad theory, April 14, 2010

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x "x" (x) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Seven Story Tower: A Mythic Journey Through Space and Time (Paperback)

if you are familiar with Jung and Campbell on mythology, this book contains great examples of the "Collective Unconsciousness" (which is often given a New-Age-y spin but it's just about human psychology and creating stories as we create selves). if not, the book offers themes and from cultures around the world, throughout time so you can draw parallels.


his material is great, but his conclusions are dubious. the author definitely use examples that could be interpreted a thousand way, to "prove" his point. he cites freud a lot, which reveals how little he actually knows about the mind and how much he gets from theoretical academia. it reads as if it was funded by some sort of feminist fruedian revisionist group? (and not neuro or even psych researchers).

the link between dreams and mythology is not reliable at all. even if freud got it right (which he almost never did, unlike his contemporary James), it has nothing to do with conscious story telling. the common misconception is that members of primitive societies are somehow less conscious than post-industrial, first-world denizens. it also assumes dreams directly parallel the unconscious, and are not just a result that and several other processes, including random electrical noise in the brain.


nonetheless, if you can contentedly discard the tenuous lines of reasoning, the bursts of in-arduously proven enthusiasm, theory over the messy real world, the myths and background info is fantastic.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good for class, February 23, 2011

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Kate - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Seven Story Tower: A Mythic Journey Through Space And Time (Kindle Edition)

The myths were great. It was hard to get past 'X is CLEARLY a metaphor for Y' over and over again. Not only do people often disagree with the chosen metaphor, but if it was that clear, it probably wouldn't have to be said. I bumped it up to 4 stars because page numbers were added yesterday (kindle edition), which makes my life WAY easier. My teacher assigns everything by page numbers, and it wasn't easy to figure out what I was supposed to read until this was added.