For a long time, it was believed that the history of Western culture evolved from myth to logos. Myth was understood as a whole corpus of mutable stories featuring gods and heroes who lacked clear identity and distinct "meaning." With logos, clear conceptuality and a philosophical worldview entered civilization.

However, recently, this view has undergone radical rethinking. The very opposition between myth and logos is now questioned, and the imagery once attributed to myth unexpectedly reveals traits of a modern worldview, much more complex and unstable than the logical and conceptual schemes cherished by the Enlightenment culture.

The uncertainty of pagan divine pantheons has found direct parallels in the uncertainty of modern identities.

The book begins with the appropriation of myth by modernist culture (with particular attention given to Vladimir Gandelsman's poem "Velimir's Book") and then encompasses an increasingly wide range of topics, from corporeality to the understanding of language and subject. It demonstrates how what once seemed archaic to us penetrates the most current forms of consciousness.