New Golden Bough, The

Used/Rare and Unsual. Book is in very good condition, with clean crisp pages free of marks and tears. Outside cover is also in very good condition with no noticeable scuffs or blemishes There are two small written words in the front page, but otherwise, pages are clean. Jacket is in fair condition, with a rip at the top of the jacket, and some signs of wear.

A pioneer study in magic and religion that links the primitive concepts and modes of thought to the many institutions and folk customs they underlie, The Golden Bough was a milestone in the interpretation of man's cultural past. No other work in the field of anthropology contributed so much to the mental and artistic climate of our times—what Freud did for the individual, Fraser did for civilization as a whole. Tracing the evolution of human behavior from the savage to the civilized through his studies of magic, taboos, sexual practices, superstition, and wizardry, and locating from these the basis and roots of contemporary social, scientific, and religious ideas, Fraser built a magnificent behavioral bridge from the past to the present.
This completely new, revised, one-volume abridgement prepared by an outstanding authority makes available a condensation of Frazer's entire work —based on the original twelve volumes and the supplementary volume Aftermath—and preserves the original thesis, structure, and documentation while omitting those subsidiary and incidental elements which recent research has rendered obsolete or untenable. Holding to the eight divisions of the original, Dr. Gaster has divided them into sub topics, and again into paragraphs numbered for easy cross reference . In cases where modification of Frazer's views is requ9ired in the light of research into primary sources, Dr. Gaster has inserted short paragraphs alerting the ready to difficulties or objections, sometimes suggesting a different construction of the data.