Mythology: The Complete Guide to Our Imagined Worlds

Got this for my son’s college class. Haven’t heard any complaints.

This book organizes the myths of many different cultures by subject matter. I enjoyed the fact that it does not focus completely on Greek and Roman mythology but includes many other cultures as well. Unfortunately the text is somewhat dry, but the pictures make up for it. There are photographs of classical statuary, paintings and relics from all over the world. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves mythology.

I love how this book is organized by theme, and the photographs are beautiful.

I just started getting into reading about different Mythologies and this was a great place for me to start. It covers a vast range of different myths from creation, the flood and other crazy stories from all over the world.The Pictures are really clear and detailed and help drive the imagination.I would have liked a little more information, some myths were vague, or just very little information. But as I said this was a great place for me to start and now if I wanted I could research different myths more in depth that interested me.Definitely worth picking up and adding it your personal library.

Recently a friend of mine bought the other book by Dell about monsters and demons and I was awestruck with the illustrations. When I saw there was a mythology book I had to grab it. It's a great book over all, but the pictures aren't as exciting or fun as in the other book. So 4 stars for the content. I'd give it 4.5 if I could, but again I was hoping for more amazing illustrations like in the other book, no the classic illustrations within.

Spectacular!

Very good

The copy I received is in German. I can't read German..

I read this book over the Christmas holidays because I'm starting to enjoy mythology. This was a nice easy read with many brilliant pictures...which is pretty much what to expect from a coffee table work like this. it won't challenge you but it will inform the beginner and to be honest that's what I wanted. Remember that "you are the music while the music lasts".

Great book full of great illustrations. Don't hesitate to buy this weather it's from a artistic stand point or factual it's a great read

OK

A presentation of art on the theme of mythology, with captions

Excellent Book

This is a beautifully illustrated book and it draws on a variety of civilizations, It is a lovely eclectic collection to dip into.

Brilliant and interesting look at mythology. Great reference of researching cross cultural deities. Check this one It's a good book for the myth heads out there.

Beautiful book. Extremely pleased with my purchase.

Me ha gustado mucho, por la información que contiene y las ilustraciones con que se acompañan los textos. Muy buen libro.

Amazing book!

My problem with this book is essentially its use of the word 'Guide' in the title. (I could actually quibble quite seriously with 'Complete' too, and the absoluteness of 'the', but for the sake of brevity I'll leave that to the imagined world of the readers of this review.)I infer from 'guide' a sense of a structured progression, and that inevitably implies explanatory text to support whatever other resources are used. That's not what we get here, rather a series of 8 areas: 'The Supernatural', 'The Earth', 'Humankind' etc each of which is further divided into 2 double page segments. For example, 'Humankind' begins with 'The Creation of Man', then 'Woman', 'Twins' and so on. The first page of each subsection has some text (3 brief paragraphs introducing 'Woman', for example, and then a series of illustrations, typically one or two to a page. So 'Woman' in mythology comprises a couple of hundred words and 4 pictures! (Complete?)The pictures are of varying levels of interest, though generally well reproduced and the majority in full colour. The book itself is nicely produced too. But it has all the feel of an archive of images looking for a marketing wrapper which Thames and Hudson dutifully provide. I don't think I would learn much from this: I doubt school students would either - to be fair it IS interesting to know that the Yoruba tribe value twins highly, the death of one being symbolically mitigated by the creation of a sculpture to restore completeness, but the pickings really are very slim and pretty random, "Well I never knew that" sort of material rather than anything remotely like an encyclopaedic resource. And as a visual resource it is decorative rather than instructive.In short, I'm not at all sure who this is for. With a nominal price of £25.00 (£20.00 on this site) it seems a bit of a rip off. Had it been a more serious and systematic exploration of different mythologies it might well be worth its price, and I would have been delighted to have been able to request it: as it is, it seems a bit of a waste of resources!

Like many Thames and Hudson publications this is a beautifully produced book. There are hundreds of full colour illustrations, covering the world's myths. Many cultures are represented: Greek, Roman, Celtic, Hindu, Norse, Aborigine, Native American and more. Though it draws on many sources, this is not an exhaustive text. It is picture heavy and information light, but this is not necessarily a bad thing.For an exhaustive reference book try something like the  The Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology . Yet, though the ODoWM might be an informative text, it's not an inspirational one. The layout and pictures of this T&H volume make it eminently browsable, highlighting unexpected areas of interest worthy of further investigation. Rather than using the traditional approach of separating its information by culture, the book is organised by theme, e.g. Death, The Sun, Hell, Fire and even horses, discussing how various cultures treat each subject. This is great if you want to research a specific theme, but has two problems. First, not all cultures are represented for each theme. Not a big issue, but frustrating if the culture you are interested in is not represented.More irritating is that most users of this type of book will be wanting to look up a single culture at a time. Most school homeworks, for example, tend to only focus on The Romans, or The Incas, and not mythological themes. So when I wanted to look up the Epic of Gilgamesh I found it had 17 entries, some of which are barely a sentence long.Of course however this type of book is sliced and diced, it is not always going to be arranged how you want it to be. The thematic arrangement gives the book a stronger narrative flow, and sets it apart from simply typing 'The Romans' into Google. For those who want a more traditional breakdown, there is a short appendix that gives an overview of world mythology, arranged by culture,In an age where most of us find our information electronically, books have to offer something different. Most of this book's edge comes from its exceptional illustrations, but the thematic layout sets it apart too. Whilst this book won't meet everyone's needs, it is a gorgeous looking coffee table primer of World mythology. Through sumptuous pictures and economical prose, it explores the differences and similarities of disparate cultures as they tried to make sense of the cosmos. As such, it is a triumph. The Oxford Dictionary of World Mythology

I love the way this book is modestly sub-titled 'The Complete Guide to Our Imagined Worlds'. No room for doubt there then! Unfortunately, given the unbelievably incomplete nature of the information inside, the most imaginary aspect of it is their use of the English language. It's a beautiful picture book but so short on text that it's difficult to see who the intended market is likely to be.There's page after page of art works with little or no information to explain what the majority of them depict. Now whilst this may not be a particular problem for those who are well up on mythological figures and the stories behind the myths, where does it leave everyone else? Gawping at a load of pictures and wondering what they're all about - that's where. All very pretty, oh so pretty ... well, pretty vacant, in the immortal words of the Sex Pistols.

This is a delightful book - and a heavy coffee-table tome, weight-wise! However, as its back-cover blurb states, it's a theme-by-theme guide to stories and images from around the world - from Aaru to Zu - and, as an introduction and conspectus of mythologies, this volume bridges a gap between scholarly publications and more general overview introductions to the subject.In common with many of Thames & Hudson's art volumes, the 356 full-colour reproductions are good, printed on quality paper and - looking at those works I am familiar with - reasonably matched to their originals, and of superior size.The contents are well-laid out - the themes ranging from 'The Supernatural Realm', 'The Earth' and humankind, through 'Gifts from the Gods' and mythological creatures to heroes and 'Quests, Journeys and Epics', with a following overview of world mythologies (citing key texts), plus a comprehensive list of illustrations and a lengthy index. It is a well-thought out presentation, albeit some of the entries are over-brief and, although it's obviously pitched and priced for the general reader, there's a lot here for the student or scholar - not least the rich cache of visual material.The volume also has a useful, if fairly generalised, inventory of further reading.As a dedicated Graecist I can't pretend to much knowledge of other fields, such as Egypt or Mesopotamia, but these are covered - including Biblical, Chinese and Indian myths, King Arthur, mother goddesses, Thor and Asgard, creation myths, music, the underworld, eternal life and resurrection, and various assorted creatures such as snakes and wolves.As the epigraph states on p. 7, 'Myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless pattern, the pious formula, into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious'. (Thos. Mann).I will grant it five stars, partly because it is very pretty.And an ideal Christmas present for the amateur mythologist in your life!

Full of glorious photographs of old art works from around the world, this is a really fantastic coffee table book, with subsections detailing with mythology surrounding a variety of things ranging from floods to mountains and many things in between, including such diverse subjects as snakes and gold. This is a really gorgeous book packed with tidbits of mythology from all around the world, but it is very heavy on photographs and not so heavy on text, so if you want a book that is predominantly visually stimulating and gives ideas of future areas of interest, then this is an excellent book to add to the bookshelf. If you wanted a book that gives much more in depth versions of the legends themselves, then this may not be quite what you are after.