PDF The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine by Robert Conquest in History

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Hercules; Zeus; Thor; Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming; myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization; representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics; myth is metaphor; mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself.Now; in The World of Myth; Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths; ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We read stories of great floods from the ancient Babylonians; Hebrews; Chinese; and Mayans; tales of apocalypse from India; the Norse; Christianity; and modern science; myths of the mother goddess from Native American Hopi culture and James Lovelock's Gaia. Leeming has culled myths from Aztec; Greek; African; Australian Aboriginal; Japanese; Moslem; Hittite; Celtic; Chinese; and Persian cultures; offering one of the most wide-ranging collections of what he calls the collective dreams of humanity.More important; he has organized these myths according to a number of themes; comparing and contrasting how various societies have addressed similar concerns; or have told similar stories. In the section on dying gods; for example; both Odin and Jesus sacrifice themselves to renew the world; each dying on a tree. Such traditions; he proposes; may have their roots in societies of the distant past; which would ritually sacrifice their kings to renew the tribe.In The World of Myth; David Leeming takes us on a journey "not through a maze of falsehood but through a marvellous world of metaphor;" metaphor for "the story of the relationship between the known and the unknown; both around us and within us." Fantastic; tragic; bizarre; sometimes funny; the myths he presents speak of the most fundamental human experience; a part of what Joseph Campbell called "the wonderful song of the soul's high adventure."