Routledge Library Editions: Myth reissues four out-of-print classics that touch on various aspects of mythology. One book looks at the work of Martin Buber on myth, and another on the school of Gernet classicists. Another book studies comparative mythology and the work of Joseph Campbell, and the last book in the set looks at the role of the gods and their stories in Indo-European mythology. 1. Martin Buber on Myth S. Daniel Breslauer (1990) 2. The Methods of the Gernet Classicists: The Structuralists on Myth Roland A. Champagne (1992) 3. The Uses of Comparative Mythology Kenneth L. Golden (1992) 4. The War of the Gods Jarich G. Oosten (1985)

The British became the dominant power in the Arab Gulf in the late eighteenth century. The conventional view has justified British imperial expansion in the Gulf region because of the need to supress Arab piracy. This book, first published in 1988, challenges the myth of piracy and argues that its threat was created by the East India Company for commercial reasons. The Company was determined to increase its share of Gulf trade with India at the expense of the native Arab traders, especially the Qawasim of the lower Gulf. However, the Company did not possess the necessary warships and needed to persuade the British Government to commit the Royal Navy to achieve this dominance. Accordingly the East India Company orchestrated a campaign to misrepresent the Qawasim as pirates who threatened all maritime activity in the northern Indian Ocean and adjacent waters. Any misfortune that happened to any ship in the area was attributed to the ‘Joasmee pirates’. This campaign was to lead eventually to the storming of Ras al-Khaimah and the destruction of the Qawasim. Based on extensive use of the Bombay Archives, previously unused by researchers, this book provides a thorough reinterpretation of a vital period in Gulf history. It also illuminates the style and method of the East India Company at a critical period in the expansion of the British Empire.

First published in 2001. Part of the Routledge Who's Who series, this is an accessible, authorative and enlightening definitive biographical guides to a range of subjects. Focusing on mythology, this book provides a uniquely comprehensive guide to world mythology beyond Greece and Rome with over 2,500 accessible and detailed entries. A complete historical and cultural context of each entry covering a wide geographical scope, from the Near East and Europe to Asia, the Americas, Australasia and Africa. Presented in an easy to use A-Z format this is the ideal reference resource for anyone interested in mythology.

This structural analysis of myth, first published in 1985, focuses on social and political problems of Indo-European mythology. Dr Jarich Oosten tells how the ancient Indo-European gods competed for supreme power and the exclusive possession of the sacred potion of wisdom and immortality. In examining the social code of the wars of the gods, he reveals that there are remarkably consistent patterns in time and space: paternal relatives, equals at first, prove unable to share power, magic goods, etc; while some gods retain their divine status as an exclusive prerogative, their brothers or paternal cousins are transformed into demons; relatives by marriage, however, who are unequal at first, succeed in sharing power and magic goods, and thus become equal partners in the pantheon. Dr Oosten describes how the ancient mythological cycles were broken down and transformed into heroic sagas and epics, and shows how many traditionally related themes – the severed head, the magic cauldron – were preserved. Gradually the political problems of kingship came to overshadow the social problems of kinship, as in the development of the myths of King Arthur. Dr Oosten argues that the social code remains basically the same, and his analysis of this code gives a fascinating perspective on the development of Indo-European mythology from the oldest written sources to the comparatively recent faitytales.

Reviled by critics but loved by the readers, the bestseller has until recently provoked little serious critical interest. In The Myth of Superwoman, originally published in 1990, Resa Dudovitz looks at this international phenomenon, particularly at the origins of the bestseller system in the United States and France. Her cross-cultural study, including interviews with publishers, literary agents, and bestselling authors, gives a lively picture of the contrasting ways in which the bestseller is produced, marketed, and received in two countries. It pays special attention to the ‘international bestsellers’ of the 1980s, to writers like Judith Krantz, Colleen McCullough, and Barbara Taylor Bradford, all of whose novels are published in the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy. The book presents a general analysis of women’s bestsellers, ranging over a wide variety of novels, from popular nineteenth-century texts in France and the United States to the novels of today. Dudovitz shows how women’s bestselling fiction has, over the last two hundred years, kept pace with the social evolution of contemporary women, culminating in the myth of superwoman in women’s bestsellers of the 1980s. This fascinating account of an important aspect of popular culture will be of great value to students of women’s studies and cultural studies, especially those interested in the myths which structure women’s bestselling fiction.

Now in its eighth edition, this magisterial work offers a comprehensive survey of the stories of Greek myth, from the Olympian gods, through the lesser gods and deities, to the heroes, adventures, and foundation myths of the ancient Greek world. The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology sets out to provide a comprehensive history of the divine order and mythical prehistory of Greece, as systematized on a genealogical basis by Hesiod and the ancient mythographers, while also taking into account the ways in which individual myths have changed and evolved over time in different genres of literature. This new edition has been extensively rewritten and reorganized to make it more accessible to readers who may have no particular knowledge of the ancient world and Greek mythology, and to ensure that information on each myth or mythical figure is easy to find within the book. This new edition of the handbook continues to offer an essential reference resource for all students of Greek mythology, and it provides an accessible and comprehensive overview of these stories for anyone with an interest in the classical world.

This collection, first published in 1992, offers critical-interpretive essays on various aspects of the work of Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), one of a very few international experts on myth. Joseph Campbell examines myths and mythologies from a comparative point of view, and he stresses those similarities among myths the world over as they suggest an existing, transcendent unity of all humankind. His interpretations foster an openness, even a generous appreciation of, all myths; and he attempts to generate a broad, sympathetic understanding of the role of these ‘stories’ in human history, in our present-day lives, and in the possibilities of our future.