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sethwaylin 's review for:
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
by Edith Hamilton
A good reference guide, however, loses points for Eurocentrism, completely ignoring the fact that other cultures also have mythologies that came before many of the Greek myths, and also the strange miniscule section at the end of the giant book on Norse mythology purely because "well, my readers can only be white, so we all owe it to acknowledge the Norse myths too which is why I'm throwing these twenty pages in." That was off-putting, to say the least.
I felt positively about the book until that point, barring some of the commentary before the author's retellings that had some strange notes. The end quite literally ruined the entire rest of this for me, which I was previously enjoying because it was a convenient place to get brief summaries on characters in Greek mythology I had never heard of before, like that of Philomena, Ion, Clytie, etc. I got the 75th edition with illustrations, so the cover didn't really imply it was about anything other than Greek mythology, but some statements are like, "The Greeks were the VERY FIRST to ever conceive of this idea!" which is just blatantly wrong in many places.
I would recommend just reading the original sources of the myths from their ancient authors. Look into the earliest versions of the myths as well as their later retellings, and decide which is more enjoyable for you. It will likely be a more insightful and entertaining experience to just do it that way. For summaries, Theoi.com is an excellent resource, without the bias Hamilton brings to this work.
I felt positively about the book until that point, barring some of the commentary before the author's retellings that had some strange notes. The end quite literally ruined the entire rest of this for me, which I was previously enjoying because it was a convenient place to get brief summaries on characters in Greek mythology I had never heard of before, like that of Philomena, Ion, Clytie, etc. I got the 75th edition with illustrations, so the cover didn't really imply it was about anything other than Greek mythology, but some statements are like, "The Greeks were the VERY FIRST to ever conceive of this idea!" which is just blatantly wrong in many places.
I would recommend just reading the original sources of the myths from their ancient authors. Look into the earliest versions of the myths as well as their later retellings, and decide which is more enjoyable for you. It will likely be a more insightful and entertaining experience to just do it that way. For summaries, Theoi.com is an excellent resource, without the bias Hamilton brings to this work.