“Mythologies” — a series of essays by Roland Barthes, presenting a brilliant analysis of contemporary mass culture as a system of signs. In the mid-1950s, Barthes wrote 53 essays on the “universal” mythologization—on wrestling and soap advertising, on cars and actresses’ hairstyles, on striptease and children’s toys. The author provides a semiotic explanation of how political myths emerge as the transformation of history into ideology, provided that this process is signified through a particular system of signs. In the concluding theoretical article “Myth Today,” a method is proposed for resisting contemporary mythologization.