A fascinating but occasionally confusing work that tries to understand what we now call "paganism" (one of his main points is that pagans had no idea of the existence of such a thing as "paganism" as such, and that we moderns can hardly avoid thinking about things in terms that would have been unrecognizable then). Fairly neutral in tone for the most part (though some hostility to the ideas of ancient cultus do come through, especially in ch.4 where scholarly agnosticism gives way to bold assertions that the gods "never existed" and that all ritual was "in vain" . . . but despite these failings, it is an enjoyable and scholarly book, for all that . . .