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While highly influential in its day, The Golden Bough has come under harsh critical scrutiny in subsequent decades, with many of its descriptions of regional folklore and legends deemed less than reliable. Furthermore, much of its tone is rooted in a philosophy of social Darwinism--sheer cultural imperialism, really--that finds its most explicit form in Frazer's rhetorical question: "If in the most backward state of human society now known to us we find magic thus conspicuously present and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reasonably conjecture that the civilised races of the world have also at some period of their history passed through a similar intellectual phase?" (The truly civilized races, he goes on to say later, though not particularly loudly, are the ones whose minds evolve beyond religious belief to embrace the rational structures of scientific thought.) Frazer was much too genteel to state plainly that "primitive" races believe in magic because they are too stupid and backwards to know any better; instead he remarks that "a savage hardly conceives the distinction commonly drawn by more advanced peoples between the natural and the supernatural." And he certainly was not about to make explicit the logical extension of his theories--"that Christian legend, dogma, and ritual" (to quote Robert Graves's summation of Frazer in The White Goddess) "are the refinement of a great body of primitive and barbarous beliefs." Whatever modern readers have come to think of the book, however, its historical significance and the eloquence with which Frazer attempts to develop what one might call a unifying theory of anthropology cannot be denied. --Ron Hogan
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Draws on myths, rituals, totems and taboos fo ancient European and primitive cultures throughout the world. the third edition of this monumental study of folklore, magic, and religion was abridged by the authour into this single volume in 1922. A monumental study of comparative folklore and religion, THE GOLDEN BOUGH was originally published in two volumes in 1890, grew to 12 volumes for the third edition in 1915, then abridged by the author into this one-volume edition in 1922. Drawing on the beliefs and customs of ancient European civilizations and primitive cultures throughout the world, James Frazer's work continues to be an important reference. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780140189315
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