The Historical Development of Mythology — Joseph Campbell

In this fascinating overview of the shape of myths throughout human civilization's expansion, Joseph Campbell lays out an overview of both the origins and the evolution of our myths.

Campbell wrote this essay just as he was launching his seminal Masks of God series. “The Historical Development of Mythology” stands, in many ways, as a kind of prologue to that remarkable four-volume historical overview of the development of the mythological dimension of human culture.