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3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
I think this was a little above my base level knowledge. It was hard for me to grasp the big picture when this book is so dense with detail.
Such a great perspective on the massive changes to global belief systems in a small period of time.
The institutionalization of certain faiths dramatically changed them. Even faiths that had been long established were affected.
At the same time new faiths, variations of old ones for the most part, were developing.
No real answer as to why that all happened at the same time, but still very interesting for a student of history and of religions.
The institutionalization of certain faiths dramatically changed them. Even faiths that had been long established were affected.
At the same time new faiths, variations of old ones for the most part, were developing.
No real answer as to why that all happened at the same time, but still very interesting for a student of history and of religions.
This is a very complete book which basically explains all you need to know about how the major religions we have today began. It took me ages to read it as it contains so much information, and I know I'll keep going back to it for reference. I'm looking forward to reading her other books, especially the one about when she was a nun.
informative
slow-paced
I did not find this book particularly enlightening. I'm unconvinced by the theory of an axial age, which seems to hinge on unrelated coincidences and is therefore vaguely defined and hard to pin down. The author, in my eyes, did not complete the task they set out to accomplish, and leaves us with a very slow-paced slog through unlikely and broad conjectures.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
slow-paced
It is Karen Armstrong, what else can I say. It is a massive flood of information presented a brilliant and thought provoking way. I am positive I won't remember most of the book but the essence of it will stay with me. It gave me a broader understanding of the formation and the world religions and how they developed and how they transformed the world. It also leaves me thinking it is time for a new transformation. For thousands of years the same basic message has been given to humanity via some religions leader. That basic massage is variations of the Golden Rule but humanity seems to never really grasp the idea. Maybe the next religious/spiritual leader will be able to finally get it to stick.
So I bought this book about three years ago at a street festival in Michigan when I was on a big non-fiction kick. I never got past the first couple of chapters because the writing felt pretty dense and seemed to assume that I had a background knowledge of things like the Assyrian Empire and the Book of Deuteronomy. I still don't know anything about those things, but I decided to give the book another go as part of my quest to actually read all the books that are languishing on my shelves before buying any new ones.
And somehow, this book was exactly the book I needed to be reading right now. If you've been keeping up with the news lately, it can feel like a lot of things are going wrong in the world, and organized religions in some form are implicated in a lot of the world's problems. So to open a book and read about lots of very smart people from 500 BCE seeing the same problems and actually coming up with solutions is very comforting. Obviously the solutions didn't last forever, but I've come away from this book convinced that we can learn a lot from the sages of the Axial Age.
The basic idea of The Axial Age is that around the same time, many of the world's religions took profound leaps forward in terms of incorporating ethical systems into their traditions - new ethical systems that were based on the Golden Rule, non-violence, and the suppression of ego. These systems also took the fascinating position that, although they never denied the existence of a god, they thought it was counter productive to try to define "God" when God is by nature undefinable. It would be much more appropriate to spend your energy leading a good life than worrying about whether Yahweh was more powerful than Baal. Armstrong writes clearly and concisely, weaving together different stories in a well organized but intricate web. I ended up changing my mind about the writing being too dense and requiring too much outside knowledge - it is easy to follow her arguments and conclusions even if you don't know anything about Vedic texts or the Chinese classics.
This book doesn't claim to be a panacea for all the world's problems, but to me it felt like it could be. Armstrong doesn't deny the various problems of the Axial traditions - the Greek Axial Age never really coalesced, the Chinese tradition split into several splinter groups, basically all the Axial sages completely ignored women, etc. And, of course, none of them could really make it last for more than a few hundred years. But overall the message of the book is hopeful. These guys were on to something, and it shows that even if religion is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution.
And somehow, this book was exactly the book I needed to be reading right now. If you've been keeping up with the news lately, it can feel like a lot of things are going wrong in the world, and organized religions in some form are implicated in a lot of the world's problems. So to open a book and read about lots of very smart people from 500 BCE seeing the same problems and actually coming up with solutions is very comforting. Obviously the solutions didn't last forever, but I've come away from this book convinced that we can learn a lot from the sages of the Axial Age.
The basic idea of The Axial Age is that around the same time, many of the world's religions took profound leaps forward in terms of incorporating ethical systems into their traditions - new ethical systems that were based on the Golden Rule, non-violence, and the suppression of ego. These systems also took the fascinating position that, although they never denied the existence of a god, they thought it was counter productive to try to define "God" when God is by nature undefinable. It would be much more appropriate to spend your energy leading a good life than worrying about whether Yahweh was more powerful than Baal. Armstrong writes clearly and concisely, weaving together different stories in a well organized but intricate web. I ended up changing my mind about the writing being too dense and requiring too much outside knowledge - it is easy to follow her arguments and conclusions even if you don't know anything about Vedic texts or the Chinese classics.
This book doesn't claim to be a panacea for all the world's problems, but to me it felt like it could be. Armstrong doesn't deny the various problems of the Axial traditions - the Greek Axial Age never really coalesced, the Chinese tradition split into several splinter groups, basically all the Axial sages completely ignored women, etc. And, of course, none of them could really make it last for more than a few hundred years. But overall the message of the book is hopeful. These guys were on to something, and it shows that even if religion is part of the problem, it can also be part of the solution.
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.
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.
Karen Armstrong's meticulously constructed narrative draws freely both from historical sources and from scriptural sources the historicity of which are questioned early in this book. The result is fascinating; but often the line between history and myth becomes somewhat blurred. the biggest problem, though, is that this book is in essence four histories - concurrent but only loosely linked - and Armstrong does little to draw them together into a unified entity.