Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Myths to Live By
Book Review: not his best....
Summary: 3 Stars
....by any means, though Campbell's erudition and clarity are always interesting and impressive.To the well-stated critics of other reviewers I would add that Campbell's view of war as instinctive (a very Freudian notion, of course) does not prove helpful or illuminate the social conditions that create class and power imbalances characteristic of warlike cultures. He is correct, however, that the American Eagle is an appropriate symbol for our nation: not for the reason he states (arrows in one talon and olive branch in the other), but because the eagle ours resembles, the Imperial Eagle of Rome, flapped its wings over another militarized and hubris-infected empire bent on political and economic domination (nowadays called "global leadership").
Books like THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES and THE POWER OF MYTH provide less biased introductions to Campbell's thought...and in fairness to him, he did grow beyond some of those biases, as is evident in video interviews conducted in his later years.