From Publishers Weekly
From Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day "myths" as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, Leeming's intriguing treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground. Out of this enormous variety of information, Leeming, a professor of comparative literature and author of The World of Myth, discerns a coherent, distinctive European mythical tradition. He traces it back to the encounter, starting in the 3rd millennium B.C., between a sedentary, agricultural "Old Europe" and nomadic, pastoral Indo-European invaders. In Leeming's view, this conflict gave rise to creation myths of apocalyptic battles between rival bands of deities, in which archaic earth-goddesses were subdued (but not obliterated) by new warrior-sky gods. He shows how common Indo-European themes-the tripartite nature of divinity, the death and rebirth of a god, the preoccupation with cattle raiding-resonate throughout classical Greek, Roman, Celtic, Baltic, Slavic and Norse mythologies. The European mythological tradition culminated, he feels, in Christianity, which featured the tripartite Holy Trinity, the hero-God Jesus (who died and was resurrected), and the comeback of the earth-goddess in the guise of the Virgin Mary. Leeming subscribes to the Carl Jung-Joseph Campbell belief that myths voice an essential "European psyche or soul," and underpin everything from environmental despoliation to Nazism to free-market economics. While he occasionally overstates these arguments, his wide-ranging, well-written treatment contains a wealth of insights on the development of Western culture. Photos.
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Review
"Leeming effectively uses archeological evidence to demonstrate not only the sources of these myth traditions, but also how they interact with and influence one another. For a reader in search of a solid survey and foundations for further study,
From Olympus to Camelot will provide an engaging and
enlightening entry into the fascinating world of European mythology." --
Journal of American Folklore"From Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day 'myths' as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, Leeming's intriguing treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground. Out of this enormous variety of information,
Leeming, a professor of comparative literature and author of
The World of Myth, discerns a coherent, distinctive European mythical tradition.... His wide-ranging, well-written treatment contains a wealth of insights on the development of Western culture."--
PW Online"David Leeming brings his encyclopedic knowledge of mythology to
From Olympus to Camelot, one of the very few comparative studies of the myths of Europe. His approach provides the reader with both the timeless stories of multiple mythological traditions and enlightening connections between
them."--Joseph Nigg, author of
The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present"David Leeming's learning is vast, his ability to synthesize astonishing. Some scholars are 'conservative' in the best sense: they conserve human knowledge by analyzing it carefully before packaging it in useful compendia. Leeming has contributed yeoman service in a series of volumes that span huge
areas of mythological and religious traditions. This volume will be especially helpful to readers who are interested in the broad range of European mythologies that stretch, thanks to Proto-Indo-European materials, into India and even northern Africa. The work adroitly summarizes what can be
extremely complex and contradictory, namely the fragmentary archaeological hints of symbol, myth, and culture in Paleolithic and Neolithic periods." --William G. Doty, author of
Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals
About the Author
David Leeming is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. His books include The World of Myth, Dictionary of Asian Mythology, Myths, Legends, and Folktales, and Myth: A Biography of Belief. He lives in New York City.
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