Stories of gods, heroes and monsters permeated discourses of national selfhood in the nineteenth century. During this tumultuous time, Europe’s modern nations

Myths are a major, universal sociological mechanism which is still rather poorly understood Demonstrates the relevance and the potential of myths as a research

Rivers figure prominently in a nation’s historical memory, and the Volga and Mississippi have special importance in Russian and American cultures. Beginning i

Dismantling nationalist myths about how the nations of Europe were born, this text contrasts them with the actual history of Europe's transformation between the

“Unusually accessible and useful . . . An eye-opener to readers into the universality and importance of myth in human history and culture.”—William E. Pad