The word "hero" seems in its present usage, an all-purpose moniker applied to everyone from Medal of Honor recipients to celebrities to comic book characters. This book explores the Western idea of the hero, from its initial use in ancient Greece, where it identified demigods or aristocratic, mortal warriors, through today. Sections examine the concept of the hero as presented in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. Special attention is paid to particular heroic types, such as warriors, martyrs, athletes, knights, saints, scientists, rebels, secret servicemen, and even anti-heroes. This book also reconstructs how definitions of heroism have been inextricably linked to shifts in Western thinking about religion, social relations, political authority, and ethical conduct. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
The Chronicles of Loki: Book Three: Ragnarok, is the third book in a trilogy centered on the life of the Norse trickster, Loki. Essentially, this is a reworking of the Norse myths in which the character commonly identified as the god of mischief and wickedness gets to tell the story from his point of view. This book's twist, however, is that it takes what folklorists call an euhemeristic point of view with this mythology, i.e., it treats Loki, Odin, Frey, and company as if they were real human beings who lived ages ago on a lost island continent they called Igdrasil, which, as in the myths, was also divided into nine realms inhabited by distinctly different peoples and cultures. Perhaps the most challenging (and fun) part of this series has been reimagining Loki's various adventures and misadventures as they might have actually happened without the benefit of magic and sorcery, though a Lovecraftian dimension has been added in books two and three of the series.
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