The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong

Aug 18, 2011 William rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, spirituality, 21-ce, nonfiction, history, uk

Karen Armstrong takes great mountains, virtual Everests, of wretched scholarly prose and turns them into something highly readable. She is a first-rate disseminator and popularizer of the history of religion. The Great Transformation reviews the history of what Karl Jaspers famously termed the "Axial Age." During this period, roughly 900-200 B.C.E., the foundations for all of our present religious traditions were laid down: Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, the other monotheism...more Karen Armstrong takes great mountains, virtual Everests, of wretched scholarly prose and turns them into something highly readable. She is a first-rate disseminator and popularizer of the history of religion. The Great Transformation reviews the history of what Karl Jaspers famously termed the "Axial Age." During this period, roughly 900-200 B.C.E., the foundations for all of our present religious traditions were laid down: Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, the other monotheisms, etc. For example, she follows the Aryans from the Caucasus onto the Gangetic Plain and unfolds the story of proto-Hindu culture there. Similarly, she writes of the pre-Biblical development of what would become Judaism, and so on for all the relevant faiths. These are stories I have never come across elsewhere. Leave it to Armstrong to see this gap in common knowledge of religious history and seek to fill it. What she has undertaken here is of enormous scope. To write the proto-history and then the history of all the Axial faiths is not just ambitious, it is an effort that astonishes the reader as he watches it unfold. I recommend all Armstrong's books but especially this one, The Case for God (also reviewed here) and A History of God. What marks her prose is tremendous empathy. Her portraits of the various Axial Age peoples are stunning in their range and complexity. It is a very dense book, but loaded with fascinating information for the patient reader. Armstrong believes that there is much to be learned from our religious history. Properly understood it is both a cautionary tale and an indication of how very much we need spirituality in our lives. To paraphrase Jean-Paul Sartre, without it we are left with a great "God-shaped hole" in our lives. Christopher Hitchens (R.I.P.) and Richard Dawkins want us to chuck it. I disagree. This is an integral part of our evolution as a species and we have much to learn from it. (Note: The other writer of excellence in this field I'm familiar with is Elaine Pagels. She, too, has a number of wonderful books but it is her Gnostic Gospels (also reviewed here) that is her summa.) Highly recommended!(less)

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May 10, 2008 John rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history-of-religion

The Great Transformation argues that the core religious/philosophical traditions of several major civilizations -- China, India, Greece, and Israel -- emerged at about the same time, for the same reasons, and were preoccupied with the same ideas. The time is what philosopher Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age, the period from approximately 700-200 B.C. when these civilizations all developed philosophical or religious tenets that emphasized what we might now call inner spiritual development rather...more The Great Transformation argues that the core religious/philosophical traditions of several major civilizations -- China, India, Greece, and Israel -- emerged at about the same time, for the same reasons, and were preoccupied with the same ideas. The time is what philosopher Karl Jaspers called the Axial Age, the period from approximately 700-200 B.C. when these civilizations all developed philosophical or religious tenets that emphasized what we might now call inner spiritual development rather than abasement before omnipotent deities. The reason, Armstrong suggests, is that each of these societies was seeking a way beyond the incessent violence that marked their existence. As for the ideas, they have become cliches but are no less powerful for that: first, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; and second, be the change you wish to see in the world. Armstrong concludes that from these concepts, explored in different places and for somewhat different reasons, emerged Confusianism, Buddhism, classical Greek philosophy, and rabbinical Judaism (she considers the core precepts of both Christianity and Islam to be mere latter-day variations on rabbinical Jewish thought, with few innovations to contribute to that philosophical tradition).

Much as I enjoy reading early religious history, I'll confess that I don't have the background to evaluate Armstrong's argument on its merits. It's certainly compelling -- and given my own leanings (which are pretty vague, but could be said to be triagulated by agnosticism, unitarianism, and secular humanism), the argument that religion is at its best when it emphasizes personal growth rather than proper worship of the correct Sky God is one I'm inclined to favor. I did find myself wondering whether Armstrong was overstating the extent to which these complex philosophies had an impact on their own societies, as well as the extent to which they displaced, even temporarily, traditional religious emphasis on pleasing and/or appeasing an external deity. In addition, her final chapter -- aimed at today's fundamentalists of all faiths -- spends more time celebrating Christianity's and Islam's connections to Axial Age tradition than exploring why those connections seem, more and more, a minor part of both faiths (at least as professed by their loudest adherents).

Still, this was a thought-provoking read and, while slow going at times, one I found rewarding. A final word of praise: the book contains many useful maps and an excellent glossary, both of which are essential to a work like this but, I find, are too rarely included. Bravo to Armstrong and her publisher for providing them; they really help.

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

If you've already written God's biography (A History of God), surely it's a cakewalk to tackle the era before His ascendancy in theological affairs. But making sense of four disparate cultures and religious traditions in the space of 400 pages proves to be a risky proposition for Armstrong. Critics agree that her central theme, "the gradual elimination of violence from religion" (New York Times), makes for compelling reading, as does her weaving together of similarities among disparate faiths. T

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Aug 16, 2012 Gijs rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, philosophy-and-religion, english

Gelezen in de vertaling van Karina van Santen, Martine Vosmaer en Eelco Vijzelaar.

Een historische overzicht van wat de auteur naar Jaspers de 'spiltijd' noemt, de periode in de menselijke geschiedenis, van pakweg 800 tot 200 v. Chr. waarin al onze moderne religieuze tradities zijn ontstaan.

Armstrong behandelt een enorme hoeveelheid filosofen, theologen, profeten en auteurs, uit vier windstreken (Griekenland, Israël, India en China). Wat er in de rest van de wereld gebeurde, wordt volledig genege...more Gelezen in de vertaling van Karina van Santen, Martine Vosmaer en Eelco Vijzelaar.

Een historische overzicht van wat de auteur naar Jaspers de 'spiltijd' noemt, de periode in de menselijke geschiedenis, van pakweg 800 tot 200 v. Chr. waarin al onze moderne religieuze tradities zijn ontstaan.

Armstrong behandelt een enorme hoeveelheid filosofen, theologen, profeten en auteurs, uit vier windstreken (Griekenland, Israël, India en China). Wat er in de rest van de wereld gebeurde, wordt volledig genegeerd. Wel wordt duidelijk dat allevier de landen behoorlijk wat spirituele transformaties hebben ondergaan, met verschillende scholen en zienswijzen en dat deze vier tradities nauwelijks op elkaar lijken, al probeert Armstrong wanhopig hun overeenkomsten te laten zien.

Wat de spiltijd dus nu precies definieert, wordt niet helemaal duidelijk, al benadrukt Armstrong als kenmerken de zoektocht naar 'innerlijke spiritualiteit' (ipv uiterlijke d.m.v. rituelen en godenpleziering) en 'de gulden regel', oftewel 'wat u niet wilt dat u geschiedt, doe dat ook een ander niet'. Dat niet alle genoemde filosofen van de spiltijd dit aanhingen, vergeet ze gemakshalve. Daarmee is haar argument dat deze (zes eeuwen durende!) periode uniek was en een les voor de onze, zoals ze in haar irritante in- en uitleiding beweert, erg zwak en eerder vooringenomen dan bewezen.

Maar als beschrijving van de opeenvolging van theologieën en filosofiën in een grotendeels onbekende periode van de geschiedenis en van het ontstaan van moderne zienswijzen als het monotheïsme, hindoeïsme, boeddhisme en confucionisme is dit boek erg helder en leesbaar. Armstrong schrijft namelijk erg toegankelijk, soms een beetje te simpel zelfs (maar dat kan ook aan de vertaling liggen) en onbevooroordeeld, al wordt ze hier en daar wel erg hagiografisch (Boeddha) of laat ze haar afkeer doorschemeren (Epicurus) en lijkt ze wel erg fan van spiritualisme.

Dit boek is dan ook vooral goed, omdat het het enige is, dat vier zulke verschillende filosofische/theologische tradities zo overzichtelijk bijeenbrengt in één boek.(less)

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Jul 14, 2012 Megan Anderson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This textbook covers the beginnings and transformation of the major world religions through the Axel Age, from 1600 BCE to 220 BCE, plus an epilogue that brings the history into the current time.

I borrowed this from our friend Steve last fall, and I haven’t had enough brain cells to absorb this much information until now. This was the textbook from one of his religion classes in undergrad (he’s a genius grad school engineer now), and he passed it on to me because he knew I’d love it. I have to g...more This textbook covers the beginnings and transformation of the major world religions through the Axel Age, from 1600 BCE to 220 BCE, plus an epilogue that brings the history into the current time.

I borrowed this from our friend Steve last fall, and I haven’t had enough brain cells to absorb this much information until now. This was the textbook from one of his religion classes in undergrad (he’s a genius grad school engineer now), and he passed it on to me because he knew I’d love it. I have to give this copy back to Steve, but I’m totally buying it for reference. (For the record- I did not read an entire textbook in a month. I was reading this well into October as well).

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I needed a clear head to read it; it’s a lot of information to take in. But it is amazing to trace the changes in philosophies and religious practices over time with the changes in human development. Each chapter is broken into four parts: one focusing on each of the major Axel Age peoples in China, Greece, India, and Jerusalem.

This was an introduction to this information for me, so I’m not really able to fully criticize the biases or limitations of this text. Armstrong did seem to have a strong detachment from the information, except when she was drawing her main points in the introduction and final chapter. All history texts, of course, are an argument: the author chooses which information to include and which to leave behind in order to strengthen their points and persuade the reader to their way of thinking. It is impossible to be objective when writing about history because of the vast amount of information out there. Armstrong obviously focused on what tied the major world religions together and made connections between their individual developments over the age. A book could probably just as easily be written on the differences of these religions.

I’d love to come back to this after I know more.

P.S. If you dislike religious history that is not written from a theological standpoint, then you may find this work offensive.(less)

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Dec 17, 2010 Nicholas Whyte rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1541807.html

This is a rather brave attempt to wring significance out of the fact that Confucius, the Buddha, Socrates and Jeremiah all lived at about the same time, between them causing a revolution in the way in which humans relate to the universe in philosophy and religion. It did not completely work for me. I found Armstrong's account of the evolution of the Old Testament as a product of the Jews' exile in Babylon pretty compelling, and we have a couple more of h...more http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1541807.html

This is a rather brave attempt to wring significance out of the fact that Confucius, the Buddha, Socrates and Jeremiah all lived at about the same time, between them causing a revolution in the way in which humans relate to the universe in philosophy and religion. It did not completely work for me. I found Armstrong's account of the evolution of the Old Testament as a product of the Jews' exile in Babylon pretty compelling, and we have a couple more of her books on the shelves which I am looking forward to reading now. Her description of ancient Greek thought, which I gave tutorials on many years ago, seemed decent enough and made a very interesting claim about the importance of Sophocles in particular and Greek theatre in general as giving people a new way to talk about and think about the world. But her Indian sections were rather dull, and her Chinese sections very dull indeed, coming alive respectively only with the appearance of the main characters, the Buddha and Confucius. It is my fault more than hers, but I felt completely adrift in Chinese geography; various kingdoms with unfamiliar and confusingly similar names, and no obvious relationship to the present day geography which I know a little better.

And I was not convinced by the book's overall thesis, which seems to be that the near-coincidence of lifespan of the four main characters is a particularly interesting fact. It is true, but rather dull, to note, for instance, that James Marsters and Sophie Aldred were born on the same day. I think it is a little more interesting that Alexander Hamilton and the Duchess of Devonshire were born and died within two years of each other, because both were engaged in politics, and particularly in relations between England and America, at the same time. But Armstrong doesn't seriously argue that there was any influence, or even much in the way of common roots, between her four main characters, so we get four completely different stories (only two of which are interesting) chopped across each other with various totally disparate incidents lumped together purely because they happened at roughly the same time. It did not really work for me.(less)

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Jan 09, 2010 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I like reading Karen Armstrong's books. This book is a travel through religious history, especially that of the Judaism and Christianity. It includes Islam, but not to the same extent. The book seems centered around the 'axial' age of religions; that is, the movements,mostly early on, that defined religious belief as a changing phenomenon motivated by individual betterment, rather than traditional acceptance of socially defined belief.

The book starts with the Aryans, around 1600 B.C.E and takes...more

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Dec 07, 2009 Charles Matthews rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We can be almost certain that somewhere, at this very moment, someone is committing an act of violence in the name of God. That troubling realization underlies this book, an attempt to reach back 2,500 years and more, to survey our earliest attempts to establish systems of belief that promise a release from human strife.

Karen Armstrong's "great transformation" took place in what the philosopher Karl Jaspers called "the Axial Age" – roughly seven centuries, starting around 900 B.C., in which the...more We can be almost certain that somewhere, at this very moment, someone is committing an act of violence in the name of God. That troubling realization underlies this book, an attempt to reach back 2,500 years and more, to survey our earliest attempts to establish systems of belief that promise a release from human strife.

Karen Armstrong's "great transformation" took place in what the philosopher Karl Jaspers called "the Axial Age" – roughly seven centuries, starting around 900 B.C., in which the foundations were laid for Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as for such later faiths as Christianity and Islam and for secular inquiries into the nature of being and the good life. In discrete corners of the world -- places we now know as Greece, Israel, India and China – thinkers developed new concepts of human beings' relationship to God and to one another.

This was the age of great texts: the Hebrew scriptures; the Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita and Mahabharata; the Analects of Confucius; the dialogues of Plato. All of them stressed the primacy of doing good. As Armstrong sums it up, "First you must commit yourself to the ethical life; then disciplined and habitual benevolence, not metaphysical conviction, would give you intimations of the transcendence you sought."

The Golden Rule -- do unto others as you would have them do unto you -- recurs through all four of the traditions Armstrong surveys. "The Axial sages put the abandonment of selfishness and the spirituality of compassion at the top of their agenda," she writes. "For them religion was the Golden Rule. They concentrated on what people were supposed to transcend from – their greed, egotism, hatred, and violence."

What makes the emergence of this "spirituality of empathy and compassion" more striking, and earns it the designation of "great transformation," is that in all four regions, Armstrong observes, it was "rooted in fear and pain." Brutal tribal warfare was the rule at the opening of the Axial Age, and religion was very much a matter of trying to make sure – through ritual and sacrifice and other means of subjugation to a mysterious higher power -- that you had a god on your side who was stronger than the other guy's god. Armstrong's often fascinating intellectual history shows how a new attitude toward God and humanity emerged from these bellicose origins, a belief that "Heaven was not simply influenced by the slaughter of pigs and oxen, but by compassion and justice."

The transformation was brought about by a variety of thinkers whose ideas Armstrong presents with a welcome lucidity. There is, for example, the biblical author or editor – "or, more probably, a school of priestly writers and editors," Armstrong notes – whom scholars identify as "P." Armstrong shows how, in the opening chapter of Genesis, P transformed the creation myth, which in most traditions was presented as a titanic struggle, into a story of calm mastery: "There was no fighting or killing. God simply spoke a word of command: 'Let there be light!' … P methodically extracted aggression from the traditional cosmogony."

Other sages recognized that religious dogma was itself a cause of strife. Confucius "discouraged theological chatter," Armstrong tells us. "Instead of wasting time on pointless theological speculation, people should imitate the reticence of Heaven and keep a reverent silence. … The ultimate concern was not Heaven but the Way." The Buddha, Armstrong says, even went so far as to deny the existence of "an authoritative, overseeing deity," because it "could become another prop or fetter that would impede enlightenment. … But his rejection of God or gods was calm and measured. He simply put them peacefully out of his mind."

"The Great Transformation" is likely to irk scholars and specialists who object to an amateur, a former nun with degrees in English literature, venturing onto their turf. The book does seem over-ambitious in its attempt to survey four distinct cultures over a span of seven centuries about which reliable documentation is scant and what little is known has been overlaid with interpretation and speculation. Armstrong often glosses over the economic, social and political forces that underlie the transformation. She's much more focused on what was thought than on why it was thought. And there are good reasons to object to her overuse of phrases like "a time of transition." We're always in some kind of transition, after all – history is not a row of little fixed and stable boxes between which human beings scurry, doffing old ideas and putting on new.

But above all else, this is a book that aims to still the noise of our own troubled time. Since Sept. 11, 2001, Armstrong has been a frequent commentator in the media on matters of belief, particularly on the emergence of militant fundamentalism. Her book is a defense of the healing power of religion in an age when many have concluded, as she puts it, "that religion itself is inescapably violent or that violence and intolerance are endemic to a particular tradition." She reminds us that the Axial sages lived "in violent societies like our own. What they created was a spiritual technology that utilized natural human energies to counter this aggression." Armstrong's conviction, passion and intelligence radiate throughout the book, making us feel the urgency of the ideas it seeks to convey.

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Apr 19, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, philosophy, non-fiction

It took a long time to finish this book, but it is worth the effort. In its scope and importance, it reminds me of Ideas: from Fire to Freud, another very worthwhile book. However, this one is more focused and, in some ways, more original.

Armstrong deals with what the historian Karl Jaspers calls the Axial Age (that period between 900 and 200 BC) during which the major philosophical and religious traditions that exist today, began. She follows developments in this regard in 4 distinct regions an...more

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Jun 24, 2010 Nathan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sociology, history, franklin-library

Beginning with an exploration of Asian religious tradition, Karen Armstrong gradually moves to a general, and rather generic, call for religious tolerance. She focuses exclusively on the religious traditions of the Asian continent, notably Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism, and while she does a cracking good job of it (her explication of Buddhist belief was the clearest I've ever read), she does so to the neglect of the contributions of the West to religious thought, notably Catholicism and post-Re...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Sean rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The Great Transformation: The Beginnings of Religious Traditions" is the sort of scholarship you can come to expect from Karen Armstrong, an independent scholar from Britain who writes extensively on religious topics. She is able to take quite complicated issues and ideas and his able to make them accessible to a wider audience. This really is the biggest job of a scholar, whether independent or attached to a university- to be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas in a coherent way. If yo...more "The Great Transformation: The Beginnings of Religious Traditions" is the sort of scholarship you can come to expect from Karen Armstrong, an independent scholar from Britain who writes extensively on religious topics. She is able to take quite complicated issues and ideas and his able to make them accessible to a wider audience. This really is the biggest job of a scholar, whether independent or attached to a university- to be able to communicate your thoughts and ideas in a coherent way. If you can do this to a massive audience of non-academics, all the better. In this regard, Karen Armstrong is in many ways second-to-none.

"The Great Transformation" describes a theoretical period in history known as the "Axial Age," which according to her estimations ran from about 900 BCE to 200 BCE (with extensions into the Common Era). During this time period of immense change and characterized by violence and trauma, nearly all of the worlds major religious or philosophical traditions got their starts, from Israelite Monotheism to Vedic Religions to Chinese Religions to Greek Philosophy. Its a very broad theory they implies that humanity as a whole had reached a certain point by this time period to need a new form of religiosity and spirituality and therefore, this transition happened in a number of places simultaneously. For Armstrong, the transition to Axial Age religions involved an evolving sense of self and an acute awareness of suffering and pain. These religions gave their followers the tools to live in chaotic times and make sense of the rapid changes surrounding them. There is also the sense that the religious journey is one that forced the follower to acknowledge the impermanence of things and the difficulty of knowing the divine. What these faiths did was to encourage their followers towards a certain "knosis" of the divine, or to a sense of truths and ideas which are not able to be articulated. This is the sort of knowledge that cannot be taught but knowledge acquired through living and practice.

The book has some amazing ideas and deserves a high rating for the audacity to try to synthesize almost 1,000 years of complex history and philosophy from four different areas. The information is fascinating and clearly aimed for a modern audience- whom she tries to encourage at the end to take the lessons from these thinkers and apply them to the modern world. However, I cannot rate this higher for a number of reasons. First is that while the information is extremely useful and interesting, it suffers from a real lack of organization. The book is arranged chronologically and thematically but within chapters, there is really jumping between the four regions. I do not think that she chose the order of the content randomly but her chain of logic is hard to discern. I also think that by trying to connect these movements so closely, she risks making them seem like they were in extremely close contact and that their developments were in one logical stream. It is a very tricky line to balance and I feel at times, she gets trapped in the idea of the Axial Age. What I may consider doing in the future is reading all of the material for one area at once to be able to connect the sections across chapters. Second is that I am not sure how much I buy into the Axial Age theory. The evidence is compelling but I am wary of "all-encompassing" theories of religion. We must be careful not to allow the theory to overtake what I would call the organic nature of religion.

As a new scholar of religion myself, I can agree with this theory on a basic level. I think that this new conception of humanity was a logical development of religion and shows one way that humans can react to profound change. An axial mindset would be useful in the modern world and I think this book goes a long way to remind us of these essential truths founded by these seekers so many years ago.(less)

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Mar 16, 2013 Sabrine Faragallah rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was not as pleased reading this book as I was her two other books, Buddha and A History of God. Her focus on the Axial Age to me felt like a subset of A History of God, and I found the span of time too wide for her to really deep dive into one particular faith or another. While her framework quite interesting as she discussed the progression of the major faiths concurrently during the period of 1000 BCE to 700 BCE, I feel that taking on a challenge such as that one would require a much larger...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book after reading Armstrong's wonderful book, "The Spiral Staircase." As a person who has never studied religious history, I lack the context for assessing Armstrong's treatment of the Axial Age during which major religions evolved versions of the Golden Rule. Her writing is very clear and easy to read, and she provides extensive documentation and explanations at the back. For me, the book was a captivating journey through a dimension of history that has fueled my curiosity. She sti...more

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Dec 17, 2009 Jim Good rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, religion

Details the four philosophical transformations during the Axial age (800 – 300BC). Covers Judaism in Palestine, Confucian & Daoism in China, Hinduism & Buddhism in India, and Rationalism in Greece and their similar philosophical evolutions during this time period. Covers the similarities of the roots and the nature of the periods for each. The end result in each is a reliance on the golden rule though stated differently and human ability to transcend natural experience. In each case the...more

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Jul 21, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

Hard to read, in the sense that one must keep referencing back to what has already been stated. I recall griping about the maps - they would not show areas constantly referenced in the text while pinpointing historically important ones. This could have done with better integration. Overall a very interesting piece. I did not mind having to go back and forth (the index helped) and it really did shine a light on some etymological issues I had never thought of.

Overall, it gives a good argument for...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Terry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, history

Karen Armstrong's power is to creative narratives out of acts and to elucidate the meaning of ritual. In this case, the histories of the Jews, Chinese, Greek and Aryan traditions are explained during the first axial age (about 800 to 200 BCE) in multi-century chunks which is the period during which philosophy becomes a discipline but here it's addressed in its religious context.

I found the discussion of the history of China easy to lose track of and dull and the development of the Greek traditio...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Anthony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

anyone who 'thinks' they 'know' christianity, should read her break-down of the development of 'the book' and the various drafts, cast-offs, re-writes, political 'poisoning' and tailoring of 'the message' going back to early versions of the torah (including the 'fact' that 'yahweh' was only ONE of the many 'gods' (and interestingly the most jealous and most violent) of early judaism and how the 'idea' that only 'one' god was 'needed' should be MANDATORY reading for anyone trying to hold the bibl...more

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Sep 24, 2010 Danny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book, listened-to

This is probably a really great book, but I listened to it instead of reading it, and I was mainly focused on the fun pronunciations Karen Armstrong brought to the experience. Yay for British narrators.

The basic gist of the book is ::SPOILER ALERT:: that all of the major religions had "axial ages" in which particular sages or groups of sages came to similar conclusions: The Golden Rule is the Best Rule for Deciding How We Should Live Our Lives.

Treat everyone how you'd like to be treated, yo.

I gu...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Bonnie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Fascinating and readable account of the moment in time when most of the world's monotheistic religions began. My knowledge bank here is unimpressive, and I take her explanations at face value. Yes, the concept of the Axial Age rests on a great numper of assumptions, but these assumptions are as well grounded as assumptions can be. The tale told is, for this reader, quite compelling. This is complicated stuff, and Armstrong makes it approachable without pandering. I recommend this to anyone inter...more

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Nov 28, 2012 Ben Françoise rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Karen Armsrtong negotiates the choppy waters of The Axial Age - a fertile preiod of both spiritual and philosophical awakening - with her familar combination of erudition and readability. For those who are after a concise account of the origins of: Hinduism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, then this is a good place to start. Whether you accept that there is some connective tissue which links these teachings is a matter for you. Whatever your conclusion, you will find much here to both...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Azrielq rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong looks at the origins of the great religions of the world through their historical context. I appreciated how this book covered very early history, which is often nominally covered in most general history books. I was especially fascinated to discover that most of the world's religions, which Armstrong asserts as having compassion and the golden rule as their basis, were founded during times of violent social & political disturbance. I also enjoyed...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Choong Chiat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In this extensive and intensive historical account of how the spiritual/philosophical/religious beliefs of the ancient Indians, Chinese, Greeks and Jews changed as their respective societal conditions underwent different changes, the author presents an eloquent, albeit implicit and perhaps unintended, case for how instead of Man being created in the image of God, it is more likely that God was created in the image of Man.

More explicitly, the author, in the concluding chapter of the book, recomme...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, religion

In the Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong traces the origins and development of spiritual thought during the Axial Age. The Axial Age was a period between approximately 900 - 200 BC, in which new philosophical and religious concepts emerged in four disparate regions - namely China, India, Israel and Greece - and which still have a lasting impact on our world today.

Armstrong does an admirable job of expounding the political and social situations of the period, and how they eventually develope...more

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Nov 18, 2008 'stina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

Armstrong is a former Roman Catholic nun that writes about religion. She wrote a book before this one called "The History of God" that went into the development of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. This one goes further back to look at the parallels of religious development in Greece, India, China and the Middle East. She argues that around the same point in time (from around 900 to 200 bce) each area went through what she calls the Axial Age, where the religions started promoting compassion, lov...more

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Jun 02, 2008 Gphatty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It seems like ages since I read this book, so this review is going to be a little mediocre. My apologies.

Armstrong covers the historical foundations of the world's most important religions, which, co-incidentally enough, occurred within the same 500-year-span, worldwide. Historians call this the Axial Age, and when I picked up the book, I was originally intrigued as to what connections Armstrong would possible pull together from a five hundred year span. To me, this seems arbitrarily large, but...more

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Apr 23, 2008 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Great Transformation
by Karen Armstrong

If you want to read some history on the beginnings and best elements of world religions, here is 400 pages of it. Armstrong thoroughly explains how the Axial Age (900 to 200 BCE) was a quantum leap in spiritual development through sages bringing about Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, philosophical rationalism is Greece, and monotheism in Israel (later bringing Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity and Islam). She says that Axial sages spent as much cre...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In 1948, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term "Axial Age" to denote an astonishing era, from roughly 900 B.C. to 200 B.C., in which the foundations of the world's great religions were laid. This was the time of Socrates, Elijah, Siddhartha, Confucius. In her magisterial new exploration of the era, Karen Armstrong argues that all Axial Age traditions emphasized justice and were committed to the practice of "disciplined sympat...more From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
In 1948, the German philosopher Karl Jaspers coined the term "Axial Age" to denote an astonishing era, from roughly 900 B.C. to 200 B.C., in which the foundations of the world's great religions were laid. This was the time of Socrates, Elijah, Siddhartha, Confucius. In her magisterial new exploration of the era, Karen Armstrong argues that all Axial Age traditions emphasized justice and were committed to the practice of "disciplined sympathy" and compassion. The Great Transformation is Armstrong at her best -- translating and distilling complex history into lucid prose that will delight scholars and armchair historians alike, drawing connections between the distant past and our own religious practices, suggesting that the antidotes to some of contemporary religion's excesses lie in the roots of the religious traditions themselves.

Armstrong's emphasis on the things that unify Hinduism, Socratic philosophy, Judaism and Confucianism has just a whiff of the old colonialist approach to "world religions," reveling in religions' resemblances without sufficiently acknowledging their particularities. (The Brits who "discovered" Hinduism cast it, and every other religion, in terms that looked a lot like Christianity. Armstrong does much the same thing in reverse, casting Judaism and its spiritual descendants in terms that look a lot like Buddhism.) This approach fails to recognize the ways in which Buddhist compassion and Hindu compassion and Christian compassion and Jain compassion may meaningfully differ. Without an honest appraisal of those differences, it is hard to evaluate, say, the difference between the morality of the euthanasia advocate and the radical pro-life Catholic. Whose compassion trumps, that of George W. Bush or of John Paul II?

And yet, Armstrong's call to rededicate our religious selves to compassion, other-directed love and service is downright rousing. People from many different faiths will close this book reminded of the value their tradition places on compassion and recommitted to expressing it in their own religious idiom.

Reviewed by Lauren F. Winner
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
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Nov 11, 2007 Adam Snider rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Pretty Much Anyone.

Overall this is a good read - I picked it up in an English bookstore in Graz because I had already read her A History of God and The Battle for God. Although the book is certainly written for a nonspecialist audience, it was well-researched without becoming bogged down in detail or footnotes. Armstrong is a very good writer, keeping the reader turning pages and generally offering a work both interesting and informative. The only real issue I would have with the organization of the book is the st...more

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Apr 06, 2009 Rod rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've liked everything that I've read by Armstrong and this is no exception. Just three stars only because I found that the central premise did not really hold up in historical terms, but full of fascinating and relevant history and spiritual insights that may well help us now if we are willing to explore them and challenge ourselves. It's another volume in her quest to call all religious traditions to reclaim the compassion that lies at their core (http://charterforcompassion.org)...a noble ende...more

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Apr 07, 2009 Kitti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction-help, j-s-picks

This was fascinating as well as eye opening. The author examines the origins of religion and follows them through their development into the modern-day religions that we practice.

Her text definitely had me rethinking/questioning the nature of God and how I choose to worship him. This was somewhat uncomfortable, at times, but also enlightening.

I agree whole-heartedly with her conclusions concerning the purpose of religion. A heavy read but well worth the time.

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