Kommentar: Coming from the lower classes, socially and culturally marginal, these man-gods tried to understand annd surmount the profound changes that were crushing their society. Their actions were doomed to failure, but they reveal a dynamism and creativity that have been ignored by conventional historians. In a more general way the book demonstrates through concrete examples how popular cultures constantly change and recreate their own traditions, and how canquished and dominated societies, in order to construct a new identity, create new cultural forms.