This book can be considered the swan song of the great British anthropologist and Africanist Victor Turner (1920-1983), author of "classics" in anthropological literature such as The Forest of Symbols (1967) and The Ritual Process (1969). Having thoroughly researched ritual in the past (and not only in its traditional, tribal forms), here he attempts the reverse journey of many visionaries and creators of modern theater: where they seek the prehistory of their art in its buried ritual roots, Turner illuminates the micro-processes that lead ritual, as the cultural context in which it once thrived and flourished dies, to transform into art, recreational play, and artistic performance. This transformation is obviously rich in historical meanings, saying something significant not only about the course of universal human culture (into which all "cultures" inevitably flow) but also about the form of our own culture.