The Complete World of Greek Mythology

I recieved my copy of this book today and spent several hours reading and taking in its beautiful pictures. This book is absolutely marvelous!!!Granted it may not be the perfect study text to Greek Mythology but it is very informative and provided me with the history and pictorial information I was looking for. This book has family trees, maps, beautiful artwork, many artifacts and great insight to the Greek mythical world. Some of the chapters I was completely enthral with were myths origin, heroic exploits and family sagas. All in all it is well laid out and very easy to understand. I highly recommend this book.

Seeing the recent movie "Troy" (twice) sparked my reading Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" (Lombardo's translation). But Homer left gaps, assuming his audience was familiar with the mythology. Buxton's book very nicely, comprehensively and entertainingly fills in those gaps. It's fun to read or just peruse by itself, or as a reference. Even so I'm struck by the early Greeks' absolute belief in the gods, in the gods' presence, and in their power over men and events. Given those Greeks' knowledge of their world back then, I suppose such beliefs were to be expected. But we've come a long way in the intervening three millennia - still many today profess belief in God, the angels and saints. Based on what's known today about our world, in my book, "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics", I propose an alternative to such beliefs.

Excellent book, but a bit hard to read; editing choices for font sizes poor. text crammed to binding edge and too small. Power through that and it's a good book.

I bought this as a gift for a 17 year old who is really into Greek mythology. When I first saw it I thought it too much of a textbook for that age. When she opened the gift she got so happy. I've been told she is devouring the book so guess I have a bit to learn. I must say I was very impressed with the quality of the information presented, and the illustrations/ photos are also high quality. I would recommend this book if you're looking for more than just reading the myths themselves. This book appears to thoroughly research history and origins of how they evolved.

Was purchased as a gift and the recipient reported he loves the book

Very interesting in depth

This book is by far the best I have ever read in the field of Greek Mythology, even when the author takes the time to mention that no book can be truly complete this ones is as close as you can get in a single volume. Every theme is discused and explained, from archeology, topography, social customs and overall hystory and how they affected the creation and expansion of this stories. It is a joy to read, absolutely excellent, buy it now.

Took Greek mythology 40 years ago in college and still confused. Bought this book to help me organize a new study of mythology. It is helping, with easy to read text intermingled with ancient art illustrating the myths in the text. Very helpful to see the overall subject of Greek myths in a simplified organized context. A beautiful helpful reference for my 65 year old mind. Well worth the price I paid on Amazon.

My copy of 'The Complete World of Greek Mythology' came with a completely different cover to the one shown here, however, I don't care because the book itself is excellent! It's a complete encyclopaedia of Greek Mythology (or should that be en-CYCLOPES-pedia... groan) and covers everything from the creation of the Universe, the birth of the Gods and the Titans, the origins of humanity, right the way through to the Olympic games, and of course, all the stories we have come to know and love. The book combines a retelling of all the myths along with detailed and thorough accounts of the world in which they took place. It covers their themes, their relevance to Greek religion and society and even the relationship to the landscape - of which it includes many maps and snaps. In fact, if you're ever going on a holiday to the region, forget the travel guide and tour operators - plan you journey using this book instead and visit Athene's temple at Lindos, Epidauros, Arcadia's Mount Kyllene - birthplace of Hermes, or Delos - birthplace of Apollo (see?! I sound like a right expert now, don't I!)... anyway, every place of interest is listed here for you to peruse. The pages are littered with beautiful photos and illustrations of pottery, paintings, ancient artefacts, and even a recovered skull of an early Olympian - the young athlete with his original gold leaf victory crown still in place on his brow. There are hundreds of family trees so you can trace the linage of the Gods, heroes, and monsters you read about, and the book itself is well written, if perhaps a little blandly (but it is at least clear at least), and well thought out and organised. The pages are lovely and glossy, the pictures clean, crisp and reproduced well, and overall, the book has a good quality feel to it. I should perhaps mention here that it's a hardback book with the usual paper outer. It ends after a thorough walkthrough of ancient Greek Mythology, with a short summing up of the effect it's had on modern day society, in fields such as psychology and politics. Now, I'm not an expert on Greek Mythology (although after reading this - that's debatable, LOL), but I used to love the stories as a child and so thought I'd revisit them in depth as an adult. This book proved to be ideal and provided an interesting and thorough account of stories and events that I could dip in and out of, as and when I pleased. I'm very happy with my purchase and would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in the subject or who would like to study it in more depth. I'm pretty sure you'll find what you're looking for in it's pages. A footnote on the inside cover and a quick check by myself tells us the book is 256 pages thick with 330 illustrations, 139 of them in colour. If this review was helpful to you at all please give it a thumbs up - and if not, comment on why so I can do a better job for you next time. Thanks :-)

I have several books authored by Richard Buxton and all are well written and researched. Great illustrations, great information. A good read without being too cerebral or too light.

The price and number of pages is good . BUT it isn't what I expected. The book doesn't present the myths except as summaries or to refer to categories of myths. The book is more like a sociological analysis of the time and place that produced the Greek myths. This is interesting, but not what I wanted.

A perfect referral on Greek mythology. My daughter loved it.

I like the sheer volume of information and illustrations it has. As a reference book, it’s great. For my 11 yo son, he was curious and read parts of it he wanted, it was a bit too much for him