About this title: This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the ...
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Edition: Reprint. 1974 second printing.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780691017778ISBN:0691017778
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Some neat penciled underlining. Pages lightly tanning at edges. LIght edge war. Cover is green with a different graphic from what's shown. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 195. Bollingen Series, 46. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1974
ISBN-13:9780691017778ISBN:0691017778
Description: Like New. May be shiny, in some instances dust jackets are not included, no missing pages, no damage to binding, may have a remainder mark. read more
Description: Good. 0691017778 Condition: GOOD. (Book may have one or a combination of the following characteristics: former library book, dust jacket missing, cover wear, name written inside cover, considerable underlining/highlighting, remainder mark, binding loose, binding slants, pages tanning / curling, etc. Overall, the book is in decent shape. This is a blanket description. Please email us if you require a specific, detailed description of the book condition. We will typically respond within one week ... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Bollingen Foundation, Princeton
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780691017778ISBN:0691017778
Description: Very Good. Book The book has been lightly read with care. It has light reading wear on cover edges. Tight clean pages. The spine has no spine creases. The edges of pages have yellowed. read more
Description: Good. Book shows minor use. Cover and Binding have minimal wear and the pages have only minimal creases. A tradition of southern quality and service. All books guaranteed at the Atlanta Book Company. read more
Edition: 2nd Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Bollingen Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1974
ISBN-13:9780691017778ISBN:0691017778
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. A few margin notes in pencil, not excessive. Light shelf wear and soiling. Solid copy with tight binding. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Date Published: 1971
ISBN-13:9780691017778ISBN:0691017778
Description: Fine. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by previous owner. Apparently, in NY in May '92, Mr. James Garfield had better things to do than read this because except for having asserted ownership in oh, so delicate blank ink hereto, this book is upwards of... Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 212 p. Bollingen Series, 46. Audience: General/trade. read more
It is always a joy to read a great man's greatest book- and the author himself considered this to be the most significant of all his works. He would expand the central concepts elsewhere, but it is here that they first seem to burst forth. The way he rattles out references and examples with only a line or footnote you get the feeling that he can't be bothered with detailed analysis because he is too caught up with the central ideas and is being swept along with them. It is an infectious enthusiasm.
The central idea here is that for traditional man (man before our brief and temporary modern epoch) no act or object was real if it did not repeat or imitate an archetype. All meaning, all reality, flowed down from above. The goal was to achieve connection through the divine center with the archetype and therefore become one with the god or hero, indeed to abolish profane time itself and be transported into the mythical moment when the original model took place. This wasn't superstitious imitation; it was becoming one with true reality.
Nothing in a traditional society had any reality if it had no connection to the Divine- from buildings, cities, clothing, utensils- or your own life. The goal of life was to find the center of your being in the manner of the great heroes. Through arduous seeking and wandering through the profane and illusory earthly existence one would finally find the center and breakthrough into a life that was real, enduring, and effective.
The ultimate expression of this mode of life and behavior in the West was Platonic philosophy.
In reading this book I could not but wonder if this principle is not at the deepest core of every human being, and the reason why everything "modern" inevitably seems to be so cheap, meaningless, and illusory. Of course I am no academic specialist but rather "the cultivated man" that the author refers to in his foreward...
If I may add one more brief observation, it seems to me that an understanding of the principles of this book are key to an understanding of what 2012 really means. One of the greatest of the cosmic cycles is coming to a close. Mundane time will give way to sacred time. The actual instant of creation comes again- chaos gives way to cosmos. Regeneration is achieved by abolishing past time and reactualizing the cosmogony."
"Eliade is neglected these days, but goes far in elucidating the contrast between the ancient mind and its sense of time and history, which was far ranging in scope and continuity, whereas the modern mind has forgotten its wildish ways and become captured to the contiguous tick of time."
"One of many of Eliade's books placing religious experience at the heart of religious activity. In this case, he is interested in showing how the experience of the divine constitutes the human world."
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