"Don't Know Much About Mythology" by Kenneth C. Davis

ISBN: 9780060194604

This was an absolutely fascinating book that goes into a lot of detail about the world's various mythologies. What I found most interesting was that it didn't deal simply with the Greeks and Romans myths but also included the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Celts & Norse, India, China & Japan, African, and finally the America's & Pacific Islands.

What most people either purposefully ignore, or fail to realize is that these myths were historically  the religions of these various civilizations, just as other myths are the basis of today's religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and others. Most people are only taught the about the Greeks and Romans in school, and if they are very lucky might hear something about the Norse. But the rest are rarely if every taught in any grade school. When I had the opportunity to teach a class on Norse mythology, the students were quite fascinated, as it was something they'd never heard before.

Why don't they teach this? Who knows! My guess would be that it is because these mythologies are never taught in a University's Education faculty (or at least I never encountered them), or possibly because a given teacher believes they are simply stories, or don't want to offend someone. Mind you I can't totally blame teacher training, as I was never introduced to much of this even when taking anthropology courses either.

In any case this book is highly recommended, and should be in all school libraries.