People all over the world have always used symbols to express and communicate the things that mean most to them. From a country's flag, which can signify more than patriotism, to a charm bracelet, with its "portable memories," symbolism takes various forms, generated as much by the climate and geography of a nation as by its gods and laws. Familiarity with symbolism opens up levels of understanding most of us have probably never been aware of. Why, for instance, do we share a secret with the words "a little bird told me?" What is it about a horseshoe that, in the right circumstances, brings luck? Why a horse's shoe? How old is the swastika, and where and of what has it been used as symbol (and what was Jung getting at when he said the Nazis used it "backwards")? Does a black cat mean bad luck to everyone in the world -- or do some people think it brings good lucky Who are they? Why do they think so? In nearly 1500 entries, many of them strikingly and often surprisingly illustrated J.C.Cooper has documented the history and evolution of symbols from pre-history to our own day. Lively, informative and often ironic, she discusses and explains an enormous variety of symbols extending from the Arctic to Dahomey, from the Iroquois to Oceania, and coming from systems as diverse as Tao, Christianity,Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Tantra, the ancient cult of Cybele and the Great Goddess, the Pre-Columbian religions of the Western Hemisphere, the Voodoo cults of Brazil and West Africa. J.C. Cooper writes and lectures extensively on philosophy, comparative religion and symbolism. She is the author of Taoism, the Way of the Mystic, Yin and Yang, Symbolism and Fairy Tales and Chinese Alchemy.