Myth to Power is a sweeping and provocative study of mythology, religion, propaganda, and art as instruments of cultural formation. From Homer to Hollywood, from Bacchus to Judah to Jesus to Superman-and back again-Mark Brahmin and Richard Spencer argue that symbols, archetypes, and beloved heroes function as hidden engines of social and evolutionary selection. Myths do more than entertain. They shape desire, morality, identity, and destiny. Culture, in this sense, becomes the ultimate battlefield, whether it appears in ancient temples, sacred texts, or modern movie theaters.
Beneath the surface of the sacred and profane, Brahmin and Spencer discover a struggle between rival civilizational visions, each seeking to shape the future through images, rituals, stories, and gods. They contend that the most enduring religions and works of art are acts of cultural engineering, which draw upon a perennial symbolic language preserved and transmitted by generations of "knowers."
Artists working at this level do more than create. They cast "spells." Their stories teach their audience whom to admire, whom to fear, whom to imitate, what to desire, and ultimately what kind of world to build. Part comparative mythology, part cultural criticism, and part theory of propaganda, Myth to Power proposes a radical method for reading the revered and popular narratives that have shaped our time. Its central premise is stark: Who commands myth commands the future.
