Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Myth
Review: Fun read! I don't think it holds up under scrutiny, but it's great to finally see a work of pop mythology. The incomplete scholarship and wild references are a constant chuckle and I would recommend the work to anyone who needed a pick-me-up. I do wish Ms. Walker would update it however - a lot of archealogy and research has happened since 1983! To see such divisive, one-sided, dogma proves there really isn't that much difference between the sexes...Good Show!
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Summary: Non-godess worshipers beware! Truth is hard!
Review: You know, it's amazing that the worst review here is by a man. This book isn't for everyone, yet, as a whole, I found it empowering, enlightening and a great source of previously unacknowledged actions of patriarchal societies. Yes, it's biased. Yes, the author makes assumptions, but it's absolutely amazing how many times I disagreed with her statements, but had the intense sensation of seeing truth. Being a pagan myself I understand intimately the persecution of godess worshipers & predjudices of christian sects.
Rating: 
Summary: Myth is Myth
Review: This book provides an island of sanity in a world ruled by current myths and fairy tales. If you are not christian and a scholar of the bible, you are often belittled for non-belief, forced to defend yourself by only using the words from their sacred texts. This book provides the neccessary background and linguistic roots to counter many a theological offense. What Barbara Walker reconstructs from 4000 years of obstructed truths is nothing short of amazing, even if it is not *100%* accurate, and has feminist leanings. Christian doctrines always favor patriarcal interests. So fear not this book! Read and open your mind. Many things will click. Worth every penny. I have bought this book twice at full price, and I would buy it again if need be. An essential reference.
Rating:
Summary: Knowledge is Power
Review: This is an amazing book. Many people will be intimidated by it. If you aren't open minded, don't read it. This book is a threat to many people's previous beliefs -- or the brainwash and propaganda from different sources. Expect to be illuminated.
Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening portal to suppressed history.
Review: It's clear why this substantial volume would make some devout followers of modern Western religion somewhat uneasy; it removes the rose-window colored glasses through which we've been raised to see our world and its historical background for the past few millenia. Using a heavy emphasis on the real role of women in the development of religion and civilization, the author presents us with documented evidence and fact that makes for very logical and convincing argument as to How Things Came To Be As We Know Them. This makes for very entertaining and enlightening reading, and a valuable reference for facts of all kinds--a must for any woman's bookshelf.
Rating: 
Summary: Obviously Isn't an Academic
Review: While this work is well organized, the content is taken completely out of context and matched with unrelated materials throughout. At times the author will make leaps from pre-history to classical inorder to make her point...there is a obviose adgenda at work. I found myself raising my eyebrows and thinking "where did she get that conclusion...," so I decided to look up some of her referances and may of them don't match (not to mention I have trouble with anyone relying on other encyclopedic matterials to support their own....depth cannot be achieved). This is a fun read, but I would be highly suspicious of anyone using it for anything with substance. I felt she was streching scholarship to support a belief system of her own - a dangerous business to be in.
Rating: 
Summary: A Smorgasbord of Fallacies and Distortions
Review: As someone who has a passion for mythology, I was quite excited about The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Unfortunately, as any careful reader versed in mythology and/or history will soon discover, this "scholarly" book is actually a collection of supposition, opinion tossed off as fact, flights of fancy, and misinterpreted quotations (many from spurious sources). Indeed, the book is so full of supposition and error that hardly a page is left unblemished. The author seems more interested in pushing a radical feminist agenda than in presenting and analyzing myths and historical facts. She consequently creates a history for which there is little or no evidence, and one in which there is a woman lurking behind every rock and tree. The author invents her own etymological system as proof that a god worshiped in one corner of the world must have originally been a goddess from another corner of the world--never mind that one may have been in Rome and the other on a south sea island! Her word play often becomes so silly as to be almost insulting to the reader's intelligence. Example: Mare Nostrum: "Our sea," or "our mother"; Roman title of the Mediterranean, or "middle-of-the-Earth Sea." All seas were maria, "Marys," symbolized by the Goddess in her blue robe, sometimes a mer-maid (literally, Sea-Virgin) often named Aphrodite Marina. See Mary." Huh? What a jumble of nonsense! Where did the mother connection come from ["Mother" in Latin is mater or genetrix]? Also note how "mare" (sea) jumps to maria (?) and from there to "Mary". Of course, the Biblical Mary "the Goddess in her blue robe" takes her name from Miriam, but facts don't matter when you're goddess hunting. And where mermaids enter the picture, I don't know. Speaking of Biblical, the author very obviously holds a strong disdain for the church and her words often border on vitriolic. She even goes so far as to let Nero off the hook and blames the burning of Rome on Christians. In fact, the depraved and insane Nero was the first to offer this explanation (much as Hitler blamed Germany's woes on the Jews) and the Romans, rather than buying it, ran him out of town. To the author, Christianity is simply another anti-woman myth, but her attempts at proof often fail miserably because of her poor scholarship. When she isn't missing the obvious point of a verse, she's making up new "facts" to support her thesis. For example, on page 470 she states that "..Herod also made a sacred marriage, and had John the Baptist slain as a surrogate for himself." Nowhere in the New Testament does it state that Herod "made a sacred marriage," and John the Baptist, as every Sunday school child knows, was killed at the request of Salome [who isn't named in the Bible, but is named by the ancient historian Josephus] as a prize for her dance. Indeed, the entire chapter under "Jesus Christ" is so full of errors that it would take an entire essay to debunk them all. For example, the author proclaims that the darkness during Jesus' crucifixion mentioned in Luke 23:44 was caused by an eclipse, though Luke doesn't say that and no other source for this opinion is cited. Having established this straw man "fact" of an eclipse, she then delves once again into Christian bashing: "In their ignorance of astronomical phenomena, Christians claimed that the moon was full at the same time." Ever on the lookout for nefarious woman-suppressing Christians, the author is willing to misinterpret just about any Biblical story or verse that comes her way. In a well-known story from Mark, Jesus curses a fig tree for not producing fruit for him out-of-season (meaning that Christians are to be ever watchful for the coming of their lord and willing to bear spiritual fruit at all times). But the author ignores the obvious to further her own agenda, stating that "The story probably was intended to express hostility to a well-known goddess-symbol." [p.307] In another chapter, she claims that Revelation 1:8 ["I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.] was originally a reference to Medusa (!). The path by which she arrives at this preposterous conclusion is so convoluted as to be almost comical [see "Medusa", p. 629] Of course, when she isn't Christian bashing, the author is male bashing, and the practices of any society deemed as "patriarchal" are condemned carte blanche. Ancient Greece and Rome are favorite targets, and their statesmen and gods are treated as usurpers. Even the months aren't spared. Thus August is no longer named after Caesar Augustus, as history records, but for "...the oracular Juno Augusta." [p.79] January is no longer named for the god Janus (god of endings and beginnings) but for Juno [p. 461]. Then, in typical fashion, the author plays yet another silly name game to "prove" once again Christianity's pagan, goddess-usurping role in all this: "[Janus] was another form of the Petra, pater, or Peter, keeper of the keys to the Goddess's Pearly Gate." To fully debunk this book would require a volume three times the book's size and I am already nearing the 1000-word limit for a review. Suffice it to say that The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets is so full of mistakes, fallacies and distortions that it borders on being a hoax. --John Mitchell
Rating:
Summary: Eat a bar of chocolate with this book and feel empowered!
Review: Thanks to Barbara G. Walker for opening doors and sharing secrets to women's world. Recommended reading for every human on Earth.
Rating:
Summary: Sourced used to make claims are questionable
Review: This book was not created by a professional scholar, but a "professional researcher" whatever that means. It stands on the "Myth of the Burning Times" when this is all it is, a MYTH. When you use this book as source material, you are giving yourself over to questionable, refutable evidence. This book should be listed under "popular" or "New Age" history, for it misleads the reader to believe that women have practiced paganism and witchcraft from time immemorial;it tells women that they were innocent victims and helpless bodies of torture and death throughout Western Civilization. Not only is this unheartening, it simply isn't true. Always question what you read and check the source material. Apparently, Ms. Walker has grossly failed to do so. This book is not a classic, it is classically wrong!
Rating:
Summary: Invaluable
Review: I've owned it for 10 years and I still use it as a reference once a week. Comprehensive and well written.
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