Once Upon a time - With these words children and adults alike enter into the enchanted world of story. But something has happened along the way - We have lost our sense of Dreaming. In the west, we have turned way from the retellings which make our lives meaningful and which give our existence shape and sense.

In the western Dreaming, John Carroll identifies and explores nine key stories or archetypes which he believes are at the source of western culture. They include the hero, soul-mate love, the motheer, vocation, fate, the genesis of evil, and the nature of charged being. In presenting these stories Joohn Carrolli draws on their classical versions and their modern rebirths.

In popular culture these stories continue to force themselves to the surface of everday lives. The Magdalene arcbetype is one example: In the 1990s, this story was enacted in the story of Diana, Princess of Wales:

'... Hers is the cardinal story of the second half of the twentieth century. While the modern Diana myth is deep, the primal force driving through it is Magdalene.'

John Carroll argues that spirit of the western world cannot survive without these archetypal stories: They are central to our search for meaning. This is a provocative work, urging readers to re-consider the role of story in western culture.

John Carroll is a reader in sociology at la trobe University in Melbourme. His books include Humanism (1994) and Ego amd Soul (1998).