Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [248]
Clayre, Alasdair. The Heart of the Dragon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985. Companion to a twelve-part PBS television documentary, an accessible introduction to China’s past, with an emphasis on philosophy and ancient religions.
Davidson, Basil. The Search for Africa: History, Culture, Politics. New York: Random House, 1994. A collection of essays about African history by a veteran journalist-historian, including material on the roots of Africa’s ancient kingdoms.
Davidson, James. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Sex and seafood in classical Athens. Interesting insights into what life was really like when the ancient Greeks were in their glory. Not quite as accessible as Thomas Cahill’s Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea (see above).
Deloria, Vine Jr. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (thirtieth anniversary edition). Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum Publishing, 2003. First published in 1972, this is the third edition of a seminal work on Native American religious views. Challenging, angry, and provocative opinions on Native American history and spirituality and how they have often been mischaracterized.
Devereux, Paul. The Sacred Place: The Ancient Origins of Holy and Mystical Sites. New York: Sterling, 2001. Illustrated photographic guide to many of the worldwide sites, both man-made (Stonehenge, Chichén Itzá) and natural (Ayers Rock, Mount Olympus), that significantly figure in world mythology.
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a fascinating assessment of history that focuses on geography, disease, and technology, and repudiates many traditional—and often racist—views of the rise of civilizations.
Ebrey, Patricia Buckley. The Cambridge Illustrated History of China. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. A beautifully and heavily illustrated introduction to Chinese history; scholarly but very accessible.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, 1987. A classic academic work that traces the movement of spirituality from primitive to modern times.
Fage, J. D. A History of Africa. New York: Knopf, 1978. A volume in the History of Humanity series, this is highly scholarly (and dated), but offers a sound overview of early African history. Feiler, Bruce. Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths. New York: William Morrow, 2002. A search for the legendary figure who is patriarch of three of the world’s great faiths.
Feiler, Bruce. Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses. New York: Perennial, 2002. A modern journey in search of the history behind the mythical crossing of the Red Sea and climbing of Mount Sinai.
Fox, Robin Lane. Pagans and Christians. New York: Knopf, 1986. A scholarly but accessible history of the transition from paganism to early Christianity in Rome.
Frazer, Sir James. The Golden Bough (abridged). New York: Dover, 2002. Originally published in twelve volumes in 1890, this classic study of mythology explores the universal theme of the dying-and-resurrected god, tracing its roots to the worship of Diana. (This is the author’s 1902 abridged version.) Highly academic and dated, this is still a significant work in the field of mythic studies.
Galeano, Eduardo, translated by Cedric Belfrage. Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (twenty-fifth-anniversary edition). New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997. Written by an Uruguayan journalist, an exposé of the exploitation of the Latin America, beginning with the colonial period and continuing through the twentieth century. An eye-opening account for those who know little of America’s largely destructive involvement in Latin American history.