Trickster disrupted the world around him, and in doing so he reshaped it. Playful, mischievous, subversive, amoral, tricksters are a great bother to have around, but they are also indispensable heroes of culture.

Trickster Makes This World revisits the stories of Coyote, Eshu and Hermes and holds them up against the life and work of more recent creators: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Maxine Hong Kingston and others. Authoritative in its scholarship, supple and dynamic in its style, Trickster Makes This World encourages you to think and see afresh.

"This book is a revelation" - * The Times *

"A modern classic . . . which celebrates the power of disruptive imagination" - * Guardian *

"A glorious grab-bag stuffed with necessary loot, a joyful plum pudding rich in treasures" - * Los Angeles Times *

"His big ideas are seriously good ones" - * Guardian *

"A masterpiece . . . The thrilling thing about reading non-fiction such as Hyde's is not just that it gives you new thoughts: it also changes the way you think" - * Scotland on Sunday *

"Brilliant...By the time he is done he has folded language, culture, and the very habit of being human into his ken" - * The New Yorker *