In the early 1990s, mention of the name "Robert Bly" conjured up primordial images of half-naked men gathered in forest settings to drum and chant in a mythic quest both for their absent fathers and their submerged assets of boldness and audacity. It was Bly and his bestselling book Iron John that catalyzed a new masculinized movement urging males (especially white, middle-class American baby-boomer ones) to rediscover their traditional powers by casting off the expectations of aggressive behavior. Although this search for the inner Wild Man sometimes approached caricature and cliché, satirized in the popular television sitcom Home Improvement, the avuncular Bly is universally acknowledged as an avatar of the modern "male movement" who draws on mythology and fairy tales to help men heal their wounds by getting in touch with fundamental emotions. Iron John had such a powerful impact on American popular culture...