Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History

This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's "The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.

ISBN 0691017778   DEWEY 113 ISBN13 9780691017778 (What's this?)   Pages 212 Publisher Princeton University Press   Volumes 1 Imprint PRINCETON UNIV PR   Weight (grammes) 245 Format Paperback   Published in New Jersey Publication date 01 Nov 1971   Series ISSN 46 Translator Trask, Willard R.   Height (mm) 214 Library of Congress BL   Width (mm) 137

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