Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge

Occidental Mythology

Joseph Campbell · 576 pages

The Evolution of God

Robert Wright · 567 pages

In this sweeping narrative that takes us from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Robert Wright unveils a hidden pattern that the great monotheistic faiths have followed as they have evolved. Through the prisms of archaeology, theology, and evolutionary psychology, Wright's findings overturn basic assumptions about Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and are sure to cause controversy. He explains

When God Was a Woman

Merlin Stone · 265 pages

Here, archaeologically documented is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Known by many names, she reigned supreme in the Near and Middle East. How did the change in women's roles come about? By documenting the wholesale rewriting of myth and religious dogmans, Stone details an ancient conspiracy that laid the foundation for one of culture's greatest shams--the legend of Adam and fallen Eve.

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future

Riane Eisler · 261 pages

"In prehistorical times, Eisler argues, women and men lived together in egalitarian communities devoted to nurturance; with the imposition of male domination, female values gave way to creeds of hierarchy, aggression, power, obedience. Eisler, a futurist, posits a new society based on the recovery of more humane values."--Library journal (6/1/85).

The Myth of the Eternal Return or Cosmos and History

Mircea Eliade · 195 pages

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant

John Dominic Crossan · 507 pages

Reveals the historical Jesus by combining peasant anthropology, ancient history, and textual analysis.

A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan

Carlos Castaneda · 272 pages

Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson · 251 pages

Surveys the pre-Christian beliefs of the Scandinavian and Germanic peoples.

Parallel Myths

J.F. Bierlein · 353 pages

An entertaining and thought-provoking look at the common threads woven through the world's greatest myths -- and the central role they have played through time.

Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East

Gerard Russell · 368 pages

Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges o

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought

Pascal Boyer · 430 pages

Formerly at Princeton, King's College, Cambridge and the University of Lyon, Pascal Boyer is Professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, MissouriWhile human religious practice and belief are extraordinarily varied, they are nevertheless not infinitely so. The varieties of belief have provided generations of anthropologists and religious scholars with material for research; ther

Color: A Natural History of the Palette

Victoria Finlay · 448 pages

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

Rene Girard · 199 pages

Rene Girard holds up the gospels as mirrors that reveal our broken humanity, and shows that they also reflect a new reality that can make us whole. Like Simone Weil, Girard looks at the Bible as a map of human behavior, and sees Jesus Christ as the turning point leading to new life. The title echoes Jesus' words: "I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven". Girard persuades us that even as ou

The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft

Ronald Hutton · 501 pages

Don't Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned

Kenneth C. Davis · 560 pages

It has been nineteen years since Kenneth C. Davis first dazzled audiences with his instant classic Don't Know Much About® History, vividly bringing the past to life and proving that Americans don't hate history, they just hate the dull, textbook version they were fed in school. With humor, wit, and a knack for storytelling, Davis has been bringing readers of all ages up to speed on history, geogra

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller

Carlo Ginzburg · 177 pages

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Emile Durkheim · 416 pages

The Greeks and the Irrational

E.R. Dodds · 327 pages

Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error

Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie · 383 pages

"Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie has had a success which few historians experience and which is usually reserved for the winner of the Prix Goncourt...Montaillou, which is the reconstruction of the social life of a medieval village, has been acclaimed by the experts as a masterpiece of ethnographic history and by the public as a sensational revelation of the thoughts, feelings, and activities of the ordin

The Vampire Book: The Encyclopedia of the Undead

J. Gordon Melton · 919 pages

Explores the myth, lore, and representation in popular culture of vampires and vampire legends from around the globe.

The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers · 231 pages

*The Power of Myth* launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. A preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher, he has had a profound influence on millions of people. To him, mythology was the "song of the universe, the music of the spheres." With Bill Moyers, one of America's most prominent journalists, as his thoughtful and engaging interviewer, *The Power of Myt

Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels

Kenneth E. Bailey · 400 pages

Silencing the Past

Michel-Rolph Trouillot · 191 pages

In this provocative analysis of historical narrative, Michel-Rolph Trouillot demonstrates how power operates, often invisibly, at all stages in the making of history to silence certain voices. From the West's failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in history, to the continued debate over denials of the Holocaust, and the meaning of Columbus's arrival in th