Creation Stories: Landscapes and the Human Imagination

This book explores how different cultures have explained humanity's origins through narratives about the natural environment, highlighting the similarities and differences in these attempts and the role of the natural world in shaping these narratives.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2021
Publisher: Yale University Press

An accessible exploration of how diverse cultures have explained humanity's origins through narratives about the natural environment.

Drawing from a vast array of creation myths—Babylonian, Greek, Aztec, Maya, Inca, Chinese, Hindu, Navajo, Polynesian, African, Norse, Inuit, and more—this concise illustrated book uncovers both the similarities and differences in our attempts to explain the universe.

Anthony Aveni, an award-winning author and professor of astronomy and anthropology, examines the ways various cultures around the world have attempted to explain our origins, and what roles the natural environment plays in shaping these narratives. The book also celebrates the audacity of the human imagination.

Whether the first humans emerged from a cave, as in the Inca myths, or from bamboo stems, as the Bantu people of Africa believed, or whether the universe is simply the result of Vishnus cyclical inhales and exhales, each of these fascinating stories reflects a deeper understanding of the culture it arose from as well as its place in the larger human narrative.

Weight: 436g
Dimension: 197 x 223 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780300251241