The Golden Bough

The greatly revised and enlarged twelve-volume third edition (1911–15) of Sir James Frazer's controversial work on classical religion.

James George Frazer (Author)

9781108047371, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2012

394 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.2 cm, 0.5 kg

This work by Sir James Frazer (1854–1941) is widely considered to be one of the most important early texts in the fields of psychology and anthropology. At the same time, by applying modern methods of comparative ethnography to the classical world, and revealing the superstition and irrationality beneath the surface of the classical culture which had for so long been a model for Western civilisation, it was extremely controversial. Frazer was greatly influenced by E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture (also reissued in this series), and by the work of the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, to whom the first edition is dedicated. The twelve-volume third edition, reissued here, was greatly revised and enlarged, and published between 1911 and 1915; the two-volume first edition (1890) is also available in this series. Volumes 7 and 8 (1912) discuss the relationship of human sacrifice to the fertility of crops.

9. Ancient deities of vegetation as animals
10. Eating the god
11. The sacrifice of first-fruits
12. Homoeopathic magic of a flesh diet
13. Killing the divine animal
14. The propitiation of wild animals by hunters
15. The propitiation of vermin by farmers
16. The transmigration of human souls into animals
17. Types of animal sacrament
Note
Index.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]