The book sets out to cover an ambitious range of subjects, in line with the topics announced in its title. It makes several different principal arguments: first, for the multiplicity of mythos in the Odyssey as both a speech act and the establishment of ‘voice’; second, for the centrality of displacement to the characters of Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus; third, for evidence of character development (equated with ‘learning’) in the development of characters’ mythos through the epic; and, fourth, for a movement in each character from displacement to agency as central to each of their learning processes. U. thus views the book as a ‘cognitive ethnography’ (p. xv), reading the Odyssey as ‘illustrative of a particular tradition's way … of understanding the world and how to make one's way as an active agent in it’ (p. xii). In general, the basic premise is interesting, and the arguments are good; however, the theoretical framework and engagement with Homeric scholarship, literary theory and cognitive studies are lacking. This does not diminish the usefulness of the book for the general reader, which has several interesting points to make, but it does make for a rather lightweight critical substructure that limits the depth and complexity of the argument, and occasionally leaves some of U.'s points standing on rather thin ground.

The introduction sets out the main strands of the argument, laying out the (sometimes confusing) connections between displacement, personal agency, mythos, the voice, learning processes and the ‘ethnographic learning contexts’ (p. xii) of the Odyssey, arguing for a pay-off that illuminates both Homeric and contemporary learning processes. The idea of approaching learning in the Odyssey from a cognitive and anthropological viewpoint (U.'s background is in anthropology) is interesting and novel, and the cross-fertilisation between anthropology, cultural psychology and cognitive studies promises a fresh, interdisciplinary approach. This is, however, where the problem of the lack of theoretical underpinning starts to creep in. For a volume that claims to be a ‘cognitive ethnography’, there needs to be some robust work to build up a framework for what it might mean to apply a cognitive approach to the Odyssey and the kinds of methods being applied; the cognitive scholarship is limited and rather out of date, with an over-reliance on a handful of critics (in particular, L. Vygotsky, Mind in Society [1978] and G.H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society [1934]; for cognitive Classics, J. Barnouw, Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence [2004] is almost the only example). U. emphasises in the introduction and throughout the book (leaning on Vygotsky) the importance of seeing learning as ‘socially situated in the context of culturally specified activity’ (p. 9). But this is where the second theoretical problem comes in: because if (as U. stresses) learning has to be placed in its cultural context, then we need some kind of understanding of what the author is reading as the cultural context of the Odyssey (the fictional context of the poem? the historical context of late Bronze Age Greece? or the context of the epic's composition, however and whenever that is identified?). U., however, vacillates between different models for the historical/literary context of the Homeric epics without clearly articulating his position or engaging with relevant scholarship or, indeed, critical commentaries of the text. All this would be less of an issue if U. did not (rightly) continually emphasise the importance of connecting the depiction of learning in the Odyssey to its context.

In spite of these two rather major objections, the chapters that follow make some interesting observations and do a good job in applying U.'s interest in learning, displacement and mythos to the characters of Odysseus, Telemachus and Penelope, arguing convincingly for the characters’ development through the epic. Chapter 1 analyses Odysseus’ awakening on Ithaca in Book 13 of the Odyssey as emblematic of his sense of displacement and beginning the process of his return (representative of the ‘situated learning’ process) to his social and cultural context. A particular highlight is the close reading of the speeches of the dead in Book 24 in contrast to Odysseus’ ‘wonder’ in Book 13, which U. suggests demonstrates a difference between the old Iliadic mythos and new Odyssean ways of learning.

Chapter 2 moves to Telemachus and a new strand to the argument, suggesting that epithets in the Homeric epics take on different broad connotations in different contexts, which allows for a reading of Telemachus’ frequent epithet pepnumenos as signalling his readiness to accumulate new knowledge (as well as his later wisdom). It is strange that U. does not go into the mechanism of how he sees epithets taking on different meanings (again, lacking in literary-theoretical framework and engagement with scholarship, although he does cite E.J. Bakker); however, the argument for epithets as integral to our understanding of characters is good, and the discussion of pepnumenos in particular is stimulating, leading on to some interesting broader questions (e.g. p. 40, ‘where does learning come from?’). Chapter 3 then extends Mead on the emergence of the self in a sociocultural context and Vygotsky on adolescent cognition, to evidence Telemachus’ new way of being as a male through his confrontation with new concepts and discourses.

In Chapter 4 Telemachus’ public rebuke of Penelope in Book 1 is read as initiating Penelope's sense of social displacement, with her wonder at Telemachus’ assertiveness setting her on the path to self-realisation. The narrative Penelope tells of her weaving in Book 19 is understood as a ‘narrative of displacement’ (p. 114) and an example of an Odyssean type of mythos, which details Penelope's social displacement and attempts to navigate her way back into a male-dominated society. This works well to connect scholarship on Penelope's indeterminacy to U.'s focus on learning and social displacement, though there could have been a more detailed engagement with what is at stake in discussing gender in the Odyssey, particularly given the fact that Chapters 3 and 4 both treat issues of gender. Chapter 5 then takes an overview of Odysseus’ learning through the epic, beginning with his sense of social displacement on Calypso's island in Book 5. His self-presentation to the Phaeacians in Books 7–9 is read as symptomatic of Odysseus’ post-traumatic response to the Trojan War (in line with J. Shay, Odysseus in America [2002]), setting up a reading of Odysseus’ development and rhetorical strategies as a re-learning to survive in a post-heroic world that seems out of his control.

Finally, Chapter 6 takes an overview of the developments of Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus in the second half of the Odyssey, where U. argues they learn to set aside their individual paths to work together in an ‘act of distributed cognition’ (p. 168). This, U. suggests, enables them to see themselves and their relationships to each other in new ways, through the recognition scenes prevalent in the Odyssey's second half. This is a particularly helpful point and provides an interesting character-focused reading of the recognition motif in the Odyssey, although there is some smoothing over of complex or troubling scenes such as Odysseus’ testing of Laertes in Book 24, in trying to get them to fit into U.'s schema of character development.

The general argument of the book is interesting, but could have been developed further to flesh out its theoretical apparatus; some specialist readers in literary or cognitive studies may find its lack of theoretical framework frustrating. Nevertheless, there are several interesting points that reward a close reading, and the interdisciplinary focus on learning and voice makes for a fresh take on character development in the Odyssey.