Joseph Campbell was a comparative mythologist who realized after years of studying that there was a dominant archetype for all human myths and stories. He set out to study many different cultures and their various ancient myths before concluding in this 1949 book that there is one single story that all humans relate to, and that story can be abstracted into its component parts for instruction and analysis.
This was the book that famously inspired George Lucas in the creation of Star Wars. The book has been an important tool in the creation of modern myths of every kind. Although the book has received criticism, it was a turning point in the modern conception of story and myth. The book is not just theory either; Campbell includes technical proofs from various world mythologies the whole world over.
The monomyth essentially tells the story of an underdog who is called from their comfort zone to master their self and the elements, so that when the are reintroduced to their core conflict, the can have victory. This book has often been observed to have deep sympathies with the writings of another important world myth scholar, Carl Jung.
