The Illustrated Encyclopedia of World Mythology

by Arthur Cotterell, Rachel Storm

Book by

Genres: Nonfiction, Mythology, History, Reference, Religion, Research, Collections

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Arthur Cotterell, former Principal of Kingston College in London, has spent many years combining senior educational management with historical research. He is the respected author of more than thirty books, and is now writing on the Chinese empire, from the history of which he considers one can learn as much about leadership as from Ashridge or Harvard.

Reviews

[La PSN · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very in depth information of from myths around the world. I love how it tells the history and how particular myths came about in different parts of the world. It's sectioned of for better searching. You can find all the Asian myths in the same chapter, Celts in another and etc... It's really good to expand your knowledge beyond the present day misleading and wrong information taught in schools as well as in the movies. I read this to my youngest daughter and she loves hearing stories. It was a great buy and worth the money. I buy books like these all the time because I like to learn slight variations from different perspectives on myths and history.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting . . .

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my gateway drug to the world of myth and folklore, and for that it will always be a book I cherish. The great quantities of pictures and short summaries of different tales and mythological characters were the perfect fuel for my eleven-year-old imagination, and it remains a book I still love to thumb through.

[Luru]

(I own a Finnish translation.)

[Amrit Sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

nice

[C.E.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 estrellas
Una magnífica guía sobre la mitología, si bien podría ser más completa.

[Maggo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Das Buch gibt einen sehr breiten Überblick über die Mythologien vieler antiker und auch einiger noch heute existierender indigener Kulturen. Die Kapitel beginnen jeweils mit einer etwa halbseitigen Übersicht sowie einer Karte, welche die geographische Einordnung enorm erleichtert.

Die erste Hälfte des Buchs widmet sich antiken Kulturen und ist grob chronologisch sortiert. Die zweite Hälfte dreht sich um ganz oder teilweise noch bestehende Kulturen in Ostasien, Australien sowie Nord- und Südamerika. Die Kapitel wurden von verschiedenen Autoren geschrieben, selten hat ein*e Autor*in mehrere Kapitel beigesteuert. Die Qualität der Artikel schwankt sehr stark, im großen und ganzen kann man aber sagen, dass das Buch recht schwach anfängt, dann schlechter wird (!) und erst ab der Mitte eine wirklich annehmbare Qualität erreicht.

Insbesondere in der ersten Buchhälfte werden Geschichten ohne jegliche Einordnung widergegeben, sodass sich ihre Herkunft oder Symbolik nicht erschließt. Ich hatte glücklicherweise schon Vorwissen, sodass ich viele Mythen einigermaßen einordnen konnte, aber für den unbedarften Leser ist dieser Teil des Buchs gänzlich ungeeignet, außer man möchte eine Reihe unzusammenhängender Geschichten in kürzestmöglicher Form zusammengefasst lesen.

Die zweite Buchhälfte verwendet etwas mehr Zeit auf den geographischen und historischen Kontext der behandelten Kulturen und auf die soziologischen Implikationen der Mythen. Allerdings wird hier teilweise mit sehr breitem Pinsel gemacht (ganz Afrika wurde zum Beispiel in einem Kapital zusammengefasst) und wenn man des Englischen mächtig ist springen diverse Formulierungen und Worte ins Auge, die im Deutschen deplatziert wirken oder kaum Sinn ergeben. Insbesondere das Wort "Trickster" wird in verschiedenen Kapiteln verwendet, ohne die Konnotationen, welche es im Englischen hat, zu erläutern.

Insbesondere das letzte Drittel des Buchs reißt die Bewertung noch etwas heraus, für den dritten Stern reicht es insgesamt jedoch nicht. Ich habe einige Ideen und Inspirationen aus dem Buch gezogen und werde aus der Bibliographie wahrscheinlich noch ein oder zwei Bücher nachkaufen. Insgesamt kann ich aber keine Empfehlung aussprechen.

[Soumya Shyam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly comprehensive glossary of some of the great mythologies of this world - although I do wonder why the authors have skipped the myths of African and Native American cultures entirely. This book therefore cannot be called an encyclopedia of mythological names and terms in a world mythology sense, but does give a good introduction to the cultures it covers. Handy as a quick reference guide.

I couldn’t help but notice a lot of annoying editing mistakes however; names and words are spelled differently from one page to the other repeatedly or captions do not describe the picture they accompany. A bit more cleaning up and I might have leaned towards four stars.

[BookLovingLady (deceased Jan. 25, 2023...) · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I borrowed the Dutch translation from the library, I bought it. It's just excellent... Words fail me 🙂

[Joyce Meijs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erg interessant om te lezen. In een beknopte versie worden religies en mythologie uitgelegd. Een naslagwerk om te bewaren.

[Jeff Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so amazing. I think it’s such a well done overview of world mythology.

[Maven Witch · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only gripe is I wish there were more! Especially from the Americas.

[Mickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

History, world culture, religion, sacred literature, myths and some considered modern fact, all presented in this book, which summarises through various topics in easy to digest chunks. Certainly an item to help spark interest in other topics and provide another avenue of knowledge thirst in your book buying, but misses 5 stars due lack of depth, but that is through no fault of the book. a reference book will never get a 5 star. At least I haven't come across any (though I would / could rate 5 to the radio times annual film guides as an exception because it is a library index on its own right - for a media art form)

Typically a 'reference book' is what I like to call these. Select chapters that appeal to you (mine; 'Myths of South and Central Asia & Shamans of Mongolia within the East Asia chapter) then to be put away on the bookshelf and go back to, when you want to read about sacred rivers and mythical mountains for example. I choose those last 2, as with the change in earthquake activity around the world (some blame franking, excessive oil extraction and god) I truly believe science is going to focus more on the study of the past river systems, mythical mountains, and anything which could scientifically assist in understanding the unforseen changes that we're seeing in earthquakes and other earthly phenomena

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book you're probably going to find on one of Barnes & Noble's bargain racks, it's a surprising good overview of world mythology. I'm a little disappointed that there was nothing on Africa, Polynesia, Australia, or Latin America, but the typeface is tiny to begin with and including those pantheons would have probably increased the page count by 50%-100%.

The entries are generally brief, but it's a solid desk reference type of book and "encyclopedias" aren't supposed to give full, nuanced treatments of the subjects.

[Jona Veronika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reviewed this book along with a few others like it on my blog, you can read the full review at https://booknerdninny.wordpress.com/2...

"I could totally see myself reading excerpts from this book to my children as bedtime stories."

[Ahmee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent sampling of mythologies of the world. Short but interesting summaries were intriguing to read when I was going through my mythology phase.

[Damián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buena recopilacion de mitologia: asiria, babilonia, persia, griega, romana, nordica, celta, hindu, azteca, inca, maya, japonesa, china, norteamericana, etc.

[Sarah]

world mythology

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very enlightening book. I thoroughly enjoyed every little description that went with each name. They must have spent forever researching this. Great book!

[Luis Trna]

My book