Gotta have it. If you are at all interested in the origins of all the photocopier art passsed around from desk to desk and generation to generation...

This book is a MUST HAVE for the office worker who enjoys handing out XEROX copies of great humor. Not only is this book extremely funny, it has captured an "almost lost history" of American folklore. Nowhere else can you get the ultimate source of good humor, that has detailed explainations of what and how each joke (or story) have come to being. Good information to educate the younger generation who don't quite understand the true humor of the past. Get a copy of this genuine relic of great writings of people like you and me. A modest collection of pamphlets, cartoons, stories, limmericks, "Top Ten", racial, religious, nationality, poems. etc... some of which you may have seen passed around the office at one time or another. Probably the best "bathroom book" you'll ever get your hands on.

White-collar frustration gets white-hot in this hilarious look into the minds of America's hardest working jokers. Water-cooler not included.

I'm a UC Berkeley student who has recently taken prof. Dundes' folklore class...this book is part of the reading list (hehe, well, if you're going to teach, might as well use your own book, right?). You'll enjoy "interpreting folklore" for it's interesting stories and witty writing...Dundes really knows what he's talking about and has always been very clear about getting his point across, even in his lectures...his books, then, are even more succinct and concise. Buy this book and support the work of a down to earth, awesome professor/folklorist who is passionate and dedicated to this topic. ...plus, be entertained and educated at the same time! Great deal!

Not only is he one of the finest folklore scholars in the world, but Alan Dundes is also a witty thinker and a very fine writer. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in folklore studies. Dundes offers a collection of articles that deal with the history of folklore studies, conceptions about the scope and method of study, analysis of folklore within American culture, and an array of psychoanalytical interpretations of folklore and popular culture. Read this book to find out why the number three shows up ubiquitously in ritual, sayings, rhymes, and countless cultural patterns in America. Find out why stories and jokes project anxieties about a range of troublesome concerns. Look at this book to see how the game of football relates to something other than macho expression. Above all, check out this book to see how a creative and innovative thinker solves puzzles that he sees in seemingly mundane forms of cultural expression. You'll never look at the NFL in the same way again!

Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a keen-eyed chronicler of his times--he showed us exactly how it was to live in the Lowlands in the 16th Century! In doing so, his "Netherlandish Proverbs" becomes a view of all of the idoms or parables of his peers.

Dundes collaborates with Claudia Stibbe to produce not only a view of the comic antics of the people at that time and place, but their language as well.

The limitation of this work is that even using the best of current linguistic archeology, there are images for which there is no extant parable. (Compare other analyses done in France and Germany.)

This is an excellent collection of articles on the fairytale Cinderella. My particular favorite is Dundes' own article on the origins of the story we've come to know as King Lear in one of the early Cinderella variants. For anyone interested in the history and criticism of fairytales, this is an excellent book with many different view points on various versions of Cinderella.

one thing that you must remember with this book; it is a case book, not written in regular story form. however, once you start to read this and realize that it is written in a thesis/documentary form, it takes on a life of it's own. this book is not written to assist the lost 'cocker', but more or less to share and help shed some light on factual practice, and help to possibly understand the connection; or at least some of it, with ancient and modern man and the true importance of cocckfighting in society, past and present. i truly did enjoy this book, and highly recommend it to others with similar intrests.

Alan Dundes, one of the U.C.Berkeley's foremost professors, has written a fantastic book again! He proves that the bible's source is oral literature (folklore), thus explaining the different versions of events throughout the bible. Dundes' book is the voice of reason in a sea of confusion surrounding biblical history.

This book is a collection of essays on various theories and interpretive approaches to mythology. The editor, Alan Dundes, has compiled a broad range of studies that provide early approaches to theorizing myth-making and then moves into relatively recent approaches to myth. The essays are well-chosen, and they are linked together by Dundes' well-written introductions. Dundes is a fine folklorist, and his thorough grounding in the history of folklore study provides an excellent resource for placing the essays into a useful intellectual framework for learning about myth. Some of the essays are classics, and Dundes provides fair as well as critical appraisals of the various approaches used by the essayists. This compilation is essential for anyone interested in mythology as well as anyone interested in religious history and the social sciences.

Alan Dundes is a brilliant folklorist who has written a provocative and remarkable analysis of the caste system in India. His utilization of evidence is just as compelling as his other classic, Life Is Like a Chicken Coop Ladder, and the breadth of his insight is perhaps even more profound. This is a book for anyone who wants to see psychoanalytic theory applied to the study of society in a sophisticated manner.

Just got back from the July 2nd, 2000 Palio. It was a fabulous event. Transports you back in time.

This is a great book. Gets into a lot of details about the Palio event. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find in the states. Can be found in bookstores in Siena.

Also, suggested publications... "Introducing the Palio" (ISBN 88-7666-457-2) and "A Guide to the Palio" (ISBN 88-86417-13-6). These two books are very succinct and have great color plates although they may also be difficult to find in the states. They appear to be local publications.

La Terra is the most enjoyable cultural anthropology that I have ever encountered. Although Siena is widely acclaimed by tourists, few people understand that it has been a successful city for more than 800 years, with virtually no crime or poverty, a fine university, extraordinary civic design, and public health and education systems that operate at high levels. Few cities in the world with a population comparable to Siena (about 70,000), can lay claim to such accomplishments. La Terra in Piazza shows how much of this civic success can be traced to the ritual of the Palio, which engages the year-around attention of the entire citizenry. Although the University of California Press edition is now out of print, the book rights were acquired by the Italians, who have now published versions in German and Italian, along with the original English. This book is available in any Sienese bookstore, and Amazon would be providing a good service if it could acquire copies for U.S. distribution.

The Sienese often say that nobody who was born outside the city walls can understand the Palio, and they're right: the Palio is more than a twice-a-year spectacle, and the role of the contrade is far more pervasive than anyone who has not grown up with them might guess. This book explains the workings of the Palio, and goes on to pull aside the curtains surounding the spectacle, revealing the traditions that have govern it. If you plan to see the Palio, read the book. Things are so much more fun when you can understand what's going on

This book is certainly one of the worst books I ever purchased. The information about the subject is completely irrelevant and of cource misleading.The author Alan Dundes clearly states that Vampyrism has nothing to do with Vlad Tepes!!! I literally had to tear this book apart when I got to know the real essence of it.If you're a fan of superstitions and scary stupid rumurs go for it,but if you are searching for truth don't even think about buying this book.I should have known it by even looking at the cover.

If you are interested in getting behind the fiction to the facts of vampires, this is an excellent place to start. The collection of scholars who wrote essays for this volume come from anthropology as well as psychiatry, with historians as well as students of Slavic culture. Consequently, you are bound to find one perspective on vampires that will suit your personal inclinations. More importantly, taken as a whole the book provides a broad spectrum of academic study of the popular phenomenon.

The vampire of literature and films is perhaps too familiar, but the underpinnings of the legends in the folk traditions of southeastern Europe are quite different from the popular image, and more interesting.
Eleven fascinating essays by scholars in Slavic studies, anthropology, history, and psychiatry here illuminate this dark corner of primitive imagination, show how such a seemingly bizarre belief is tied to certain folk practices of exhumation, bring the studies up to date with cases of modern "vampires", and offer a psychoanalytic interpretation of the phenomenon. (The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)