Book summary

Western culture, with its absent fathers, radical feminists, lack of tradition, and other factors, has produced men in crisis, says Robert Bly, founder of the Men's Movement. Men who have been raised in this culture often resort to being either antagonistic and domineering, or passive and detached, none of which makes them, or anyone else, happy. The clues to an authentic masculinity, Bly proposes, lie in ancient initiations and tribal rites of passage, where relationships between men are celebrated, nurtured, and honored. Bly interprets the Grimm fairy tale "Iron John" as a metaphor for how a boy should be guided by a male elder from boyhood into his emergence in maturity as a man of strength, compassion, and kindness. This thoughtful, poetic book bravely attempts to shatter strict and unbending codes of masculinity.