Only 3-Word Review on video:

“Read him to watch his mind work these puzzles. He works with the clues he has (and they are many and much-researched), but he is able to read images polyvalent, forge links contradictory, . . .”

Let’s be clear from the outset: Many of Campbell’s archaeological facts and connections are now outdated; some of his description will seem today Eurocentric, condescending, or even racist; his theoretical orientation has always pulled toward structural and psychological centers (also dated); and he makes little effort to be objective about his subject. While some reviewers here may describe this book as scholarship, it could not today (or perhaps in its day) pass intense peer review.

But these are hardly reasons enough to read (or not read) Campbell. Campbell’s mind makes connections. He finds ties between biology and archaeology and migration and history and religion and the functions of mythology, bringing together Freud, Jung, and Nietzsche (often his favorites), finding clues to the mysteries of Greek labyrinths and Polynesian cannibalism in the tombs of Ur. Read him to watch his mind work these puzzles. He works with the clues he has (and they are many and much-researched), but he is able to read images polyvalent, forge links contradictory, and–finally in this volume–master a conclusion syncretic and epic in scale, sweeping readers into his own experience of awe. Would that we could all reason and express ourselves this way.

Others have recommended The Hero With a Thousand Faces to read first, and I would agree, as an introduction to Campbell. But for any who want to see deeper than Hamilton’s or Graves’s inventories of tales, for those looking to dig a bit deeper into pre-history and see its patterns (and how we come to know them), and for those wishing to crawl along the floor of a cave to make their ways to a deeper mystery, this is a fine start. It is a long and sometimes arduous way: but only such journeys as these leave us satisfied.