New realities are being created every moment. But how really are they taking form? Certainly, an existing reality can't lead to a new one by itself. The genesis of new realities lies in-believe it or not-fiction. It is fictions, myths and legends-our imagination-that has shaped and is shaping our world. This highly evocative and analytical book digs deep into the secrets of consciousness of societies, religions and nations to unravel the myths of reality and reality of myths.

'The Myths of Reality' reveals how reality is culturally constructed in an ever-continuing process from mythic fragments transmitted by the mass media and adapted through face-to-face and Internet conversations.

Do myths and symbols have anything at all to tell us about reality? Or do they simply deserve to be relegated to the realm of fantastic unreality? The essayists in this volume deploy all the critical tools available in the task of taking myth and symbol seriously. They are not willing to consign the use of the symbolic to the logician or to relinquish the mythical to the comparative anthropologist as something of historical interest only. Instead, they strive for that difficult position that is guided by criticism but is still open to wonder in the face of what myth and symbol offer in terms of enrichment, meaning, and self-transcendence.

An instant national bestseller! Stanley McChrystal, the retired US Army general and bestselling author of Team of Teams, profiles thirteen of history’s great leaders, including Walt Disney, Coco Chanel, and Robert E. Lee, to show that leadership is not what you think it is—and never was. Stan McChrystal served for thirty-four years in the US Army, rising from a second lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division to a four-star general, in command of all American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. During those years he worked with countless leaders and pondered an ancient question: “What makes a leader great?” He came to realize that there is no simple answer. McChrystal profiles thirteen famous leaders from a wide range of eras and fields—from corporate CEOs to politicians and revolutionaries. He uses their stories to explore how leadership works in practice and to challenge the myths that complicate our thinking about this critical topic. With Plutarch’s Lives as his model, McChrystal looks at paired sets of leaders who followed unconventional paths to success. For instance. . . · Walt Disney and Coco Chanel built empires in very different ways. Both had public personas that sharply contrasted with how they lived in private. · Maximilien Robespierre helped shape the French Revolution in the eighteenth century; Abu Musab al-Zarqawi led the jihadist insurgency in Iraq in the twenty-first. We can draw surprising lessons from them about motivation and persuasion. · Both Boss Tweed in nineteenth-century New York and Margaret Thatcher in twentieth-century Britain followed unlikely roads to the top of powerful institutions. · Martin Luther and his future namesake Martin Luther King Jr., both local clergymen, emerged from modest backgrounds to lead world-changing movements. Finally, McChrystal explores how his former hero, General Robert E. Lee, could seemingly do everything right in his military career and yet lead the Confederate Army to a devastating defeat in the service of an immoral cause. Leaders will help you take stock of your own leadership, whether you’re part of a small team or responsible for an entire nation.

"To the student of myth: This book attempts to provide a concise overview of the theoretical approaches to studying mythology, both in theory and in everyday life. Whether one is interested in a particular myth or mythic tradition, or understanding comparative mythology more broadly, or even the subject and overview of mythology as a whole, this text attempts to present a clear and understandable introduction to some of the best tried and true approaches, as well as to address some of the perennial problems and points of confusion. To embark on the study of myth is to join a noisy chorus of scholars, both present and past, in attempting to divine the meaning of some of the most important, intriguing, and at times puzzling narratives that humankind has ever crafted. We hope this text will help provide you with the theoretical background and tools to allow for a rich, full study of mythology in all its myriad forms. To the teacher of myth: Myth has been the source of a great deal of theoretical disagreement and confusion as well. We have tried to address some of the controversies by appealing to a close and careful consideration of the data, which at times helps keep lofty theorizing firmly anchored in the real world. Additionally, we have tried to present a historical background to the study of myth, which should also help illuminate the close relationships between a society, and that society's views of myth. Mythology does not occur without people: it is only with a strong grounding in the study of humankind that we can hope to make progress in our understanding. Where doubt within the scholarly community has arisen, we have tried to pay attention to both sides of the debates. The resulting text is intended to be a detailed, yet engaging, introduction to the study of world mythology, and a scholarly counterweight to popular, unscientific views. Our experience in teaching myth is that the most vexing issues stem from the several strained if not contradictory connotations that the term myth carries. Is myth archaic, or is it part of all societies and thus modern as well? Is it part of religion and/or science, or does it contrast with these? Most vexingly, does myth designate falsehood, or the highest forms of truth-those that form the core, guiding principles of particular societies' engagements of the cosmos and life within it? There is also the double signification of the term mythology, which points to both an academic tradition and the object studied by that tradition. Our view is that while such antinomies are unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future, much can be gained by locating and identifying them and by attempting to understand how and why they have emerged. We hope that this approach not only lends clarity to the topic of myth, but also serves to energize the study to which we now turn"--