Regular marked price: $27.99Discount Price: $18.47
Cost Savings: $9.52 (34%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 291
EAN num: 9781595479594
ISBN number: 1595479597
Label: NuVision Publications
Manufacturer: NuVision Publications
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 396
Printing Date: September 19, 2006
Publishing house: NuVision Publications
Sale Popularity Level: 258357
Studio: NuVision Publications
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
A monumental study in comparative folklore, magic and religion, The Golden Bough shows parallels between the rites and beliefs, superstitions and taboos of early cultures and those of Christianity. It had a great impact on psychology and literature and remains an early classic anthropological resource.
Amazon.com Review:
Before Joseph Campbell became the world's most famous practitioner of comparative mythology, there was Sir James George Frazer. The Golden Bough was originally published in two volumes in 1890, but Frazer became so enamored of his topic that over the subsequent few decades he expanded the work sixfold, then in 1922 cut it all down to a single thick edition suitable for mass distribution. The thesis on the origins of magic and religion that it elaborates 'will be long and laborious,' Frazer warns readers, 'but may possess something of the charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs.' Chief among those customs--at least as the book is remembered in the popular imagination--is the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism--sheer cultural imperialism, really--that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: 'If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?' (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that 'primitive' races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that 'a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural.' And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories--'that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual' (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) 'are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs.' Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. --Ron Hogan
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
_The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion_, originally published in 1922 and republished here by Collier Books, is an abridged one volume edition of the classic study of Sir James George Frazer on magic and religion. Sir J. G. Frazer (1854 - 1941) was a Scottish social anthropologist whose works have proven to be classics in the fields of comparative religion and mythology. _The Golden Bough_ is perhaps his most famous work detailing the magical practices from a wide variety of ancient and primitive cultures. The extensive research undertaken to complete this volume makes the study worthy to be read alone, in that it reveals much of the folklore from around the globe which has been important to providing understanding of primitive religious and magical practices. _The Golden Bough_ maintains that magic developed into primitive religion which eventually developed into modern science in an evolutionary perspective on the history of comparative religions. Further, this work offers a study of the various beliefs of "primitive" peoples maintaining that the ancient religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and sacrifice of the priest-king. Frazer maintains that this gave rise to the "dying gods" motif in which the king is sacrificed and then returns to life found throughout the world's religious traditions. In particular, Frazer points to the pre-Roman priest-king at the fane of Nemi who was ritually murdered by his successor. This book gained attention because it included Christianity within its comparative study and thus scandalized its reading public. Further, Frazer has been criticized for maintaining a rationalist bias and for denigrating the beliefs and folklore of allegedly "primitive" cultures and peoples. Nevertheless, despite this bias, Frazer's study has proven extremely important in that it collects an enormous amount of information and his "dying gods" thesis remains influential. Indeed, the plethora of "dying gods" throughout ancient cultures may be seen as an important precursor to the Christian faith. Frazer also provides an excellent study of magic, in which he distinguishes between homeopathic magic (based on the Law of Similarity) and contagious magic (based on the Law of Contact) under the heading of sympathetic magic (based on the Law of Sympathy). Frazer further divides magic into theoretical magic (or magic as a pseudo-science) and practical magic (or magic as a pseudo-art) noting the difference between positive magic or sorcery and negative magic or taboo under practical magic. However, Frazer ultimately will compare magic to science and will champion science and an evolutionary viewpoint of science in relationship to the supposed progression from magic to religion to science. The term "the Golden Bough" refers to both Turner's picture of the "Golden Bough" and the mistletoe seen in the life of Balder. This book has been enormously influential not only in the study of comparative religion but also was very popular amongst certain Twentieth century writers and poets who frequently quoted from and made use of it. While Frazer's thesis may be fundamentally flawed, it nevertheless offers an astounding collection of information and folklore as well as an interesting understanding of the myth of the "dying god".
The book includes the following contents:
"The King of the Wood" - mentioning Diana and Verbius as well as Artemis and Hyppolytus,
"Priestly Kings",
"Sympathetic Magic" - mentioning the principles of magic, the types of magic, and the magician's progress,
"Magic and Religion",
"The Magical Control of the Weather" - mentioning the public magician and magical control of the rain, sun, and wind,
"Magicians as Kings",
"Incarnate Human Gods",
"Departmental Kings of Nature",
"The Worship of Trees" - mentioning tree-spirits,
"Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe",
"The Influences of the Sexes on Vegetation",
"The Sacred Marriage" - mentioning Diana,
"The Kings of Rome and Alba" - mentioning Numa and Egeria and Jupiter,
"The Succession to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium",
"The Worship of the Oak",
"The Burden of the Royalty" - mentioning priestly taboos,
"The Perils of the Soul" - mentioning the soul as a manikin,
"Tabooed Acts",
"Tabooed Persons",
"Tabooed Things",
"Tabooed Words",
"Our Debt to the Savage",
"The Killing of the Divine King",
"Temporary Kings",
"The Killing of the King's Son",
"Succession of the Soul",
"The Killing of the Tree-Spirit" - mentioning the "death",
"The Myth of Adonis",
"Adonis in Syria",
"Adonis in Cyprus",
"The Ritual of Adonis",
"The Gardens of Adonis",
"The Myth and Ritual of Attis",
"Attis as a God of Vegetation",
"Human Representatives of Attis",
"Oriental Religions in the West",
Read More
Rated by buyers -
This book is a seminal work because it had a crucial influence on four important works of the twentieth century: T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius.
Sir James George Frazer's book written in 1922 was a groundbreaking work on ancient religion, paganism, and roots of early Christianity. Frazer does an in-depth examination of the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
Frazer spent his life writing fifteen volumes of history of myth and religion. This book sums up his theory of magic and its connections to paganism, as well as fusing ideas from Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance and Gnostic texts that serve as a link to early Christianity's influence from ancient nature cults. His chapter titles say much about where his work goes and why it is so influential on iconic twentieth century works. The King of the Wood explains the original nature of the task imposed upon the hero, it undoubtedly influenced both Campbell's and Coppola's works. The Myths of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris looks to establish a chain of descent connecting early Aryan and Babylonian ritual with classic, Medieval and modern forms of nature worship. Our Debt to the Savage explains the role of the Medicine Man or doctor in fertility ritual. The Killing of the Devine King analyzes how this title is prevalent in so many of humankind's legends, and was a definite influence on Coppola's Colonel Kurtz character. Sacrifice of the King's Son regarded as an object of awe certainly influenced The Da Vinci Code.
Frazer's book is interesting and fun to read. I especially became interested in it from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. Weston's book is one of three on the nightstand. The other two are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which the film is based on. The other book is Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla were trying to tell their audience need to read these three books!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.
Rated by buyers -
This book is a seminal work because it had a crucial influence on four important works of the twentieth century: T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius.
Sir James George Frazer's book written in 1922 was a groundbreaking work on ancient religion, paganism, and roots of early Christianity. Frazer does an in-depth examination of the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
Frazer spent his life writing fifteen volumes of history of myth and religion. This book sums up his theory of magic and its connections to paganism, as well as fusing ideas from Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance and Gnostic texts that serve as a link to early Christianity's influence from ancient nature cults. His chapter titles say much about where his work goes and why it is so influential on iconic twentieth century works. The King of the Wood explains the original nature of the task imposed upon the hero, it undoubtedly influenced both Campbell's and Coppola's works. The Myths of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris looks to establish a chain of descent connecting early Aryan and Babylonian ritual with classic, Medieval and modern forms of nature worship. Our Debt to the Savage explains the role of the Medicine Man or doctor in fertility ritual. The Killing of the Devine King analyzes how this title is prevalent in so many of humankind's legends, and was a definite influence on Coppola's Colonel Kurtz character. Sacrifice of the King's Son regarded as an object of awe certainly influenced The Da Vinci Code.
Frazer's book is interesting and fun to read. I especially became interested in it from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. Weston's book is one of three on the nightstand. The other two are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which the film is based on. The other book is Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla were trying to tell their audience need to read these three books!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.
Rated by buyers -
This book is a seminal work because it had a crucial influence on four important works of the twentieth century: T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius.
Sir James George Frazer's book written in 1922 was a groundbreaking work on ancient religion, paganism, and roots of early Christianity. Frazer does an in-depth examination of the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
Frazer spent his life writing fifteen volumes of history of myth and religion. This book sums up his theory of magic and its connections to paganism, as well as fusing ideas from Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance and Gnostic texts that serve as a link to early Christianity's influence from ancient nature cults. His chapter titles say much about where his work goes and why it is so influential on iconic twentieth century works. The King of the Wood explains the original nature of the task imposed upon the hero, it undoubtedly influenced both Campbell's and Coppola's works. The Myths of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris looks to establish a chain of descent connecting early Aryan and Babylonian ritual with classic, Medieval and modern forms of nature worship. Our Debt to the Savage explains the role of the Medicine Man or doctor in fertility ritual. The Killing of the Devine King analyzes how this title is prevalent in so many of humankind's legends, and was a definite influence on Coppola's Colonel Kurtz character. Sacrifice of the King's Son regarded as an object of awe certainly influenced The Da Vinci Code.
Frazer's book is interesting and fun to read. I especially became interested in it from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. Weston's book is one of three on the nightstand. The other two are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which the film is based on. The other book is Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla were trying to tell their audience need to read these three books!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.
Rated by buyers -
This book is a seminal work because it had a crucial influence on four important works of the twentieth century: T. S. Elliott's poem the Waste Land, Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Dan Brown's book The Da Vinci Code, and Francis Ford Coppolla's movie Apocalypse Now, screenplay by John Milius.
Sir James George Frazer's book written in 1922 was a groundbreaking work on ancient religion, paganism, and roots of early Christianity. Frazer does an in-depth examination of the sacrificial killing of god-kings to ensure bountiful harvests, which Frazer traces through several cultures, including in his elaborations the myths of Adonis, Osiris, and Balder.
Frazer spent his life writing fifteen volumes of history of myth and religion. This book sums up his theory of magic and its connections to paganism, as well as fusing ideas from Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance and Gnostic texts that serve as a link to early Christianity's influence from ancient nature cults. His chapter titles say much about where his work goes and why it is so influential on iconic twentieth century works. The King of the Wood explains the original nature of the task imposed upon the hero, it undoubtedly influenced both Campbell's and Coppola's works. The Myths of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris looks to establish a chain of descent connecting early Aryan and Babylonian ritual with classic, Medieval and modern forms of nature worship. Our Debt to the Savage explains the role of the Medicine Man or doctor in fertility ritual. The Killing of the Devine King analyzes how this title is prevalent in so many of humankind's legends, and was a definite influence on Coppola's Colonel Kurtz character. Sacrifice of the King's Son regarded as an object of awe certainly influenced The Da Vinci Code.
Frazer's book is interesting and fun to read. I especially became interested in it from the movie Apocalypse Now. There is a scene in the movie that shows Colonel Kurtz's nightstand in his cave. Weston's book is one of three on the nightstand. The other two are Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which the film is based on. The other book is Jessie L. Weston's book From Ritual To Romance. Anyone wanting to understand the movie Apocalypse Now, especially the character of Colonel Kurtz, and what Milius and Copolla were trying to tell their audience need to read these three books!
As a graduate student reading in philosophy and history I recommend this book for anyone interested in literature, myth, history, philosophy, religion and fans of Apocalypse Now.
Find other books like this one:
