A brilliant and beautiful book that compares and contrasts two spectacular creation myths. The first is John Milton's surpassing "Paradise Lost," his surprisingly compassionate treatment of the Garden of Eden story from Genesis 2. Second is the Navajo creation story with its Holy People, its sacred mountains, and its quest for "hozhoon"--the Navajo concept of balance, harmony and beauty. There is much that is similar and much that is unique: the story of Adam and Eve is a tale of an all-powerful God of singular authority amidst a war with a rebellious Angel of Light, but the Navajo creation story features a evolutionary journey in which the people emerge through four worlds, guided by many gods and goddesses, to the fifth world we inhabit today. Milton's poem traces the Fall of a human couple targeted by Satan's serpent but who may still create a paradise within, but within a strife-ridden world and a patriarchal system that will privilege the male; the Navajo epic will conclude with male and female deities creating a home together on a shimmering sea and a people living in a natural world they sense as sentient and in a culture that respects male and female as equal. Illustrated with more than 160 images and embellished with dozens of sidebars and cultural notes, this 525-page book is a treasure, written by the only scholar who had the knowledge of both literary masterpieces and the cultural understanding to see the world from both perspectives. Dr. Paul Zolbrod is author of "Dine Bahane': the Navajo creation story" and was professor of English and Native American mythologies for decades.