The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong


finished 4/22 ........... non-fiction religion ....... rating 8

Pretty rigorous reading but quite interesting. This is the story of the four major religious flowerings which seemed sprout between 900 BC and 300 BC (or so). This flowering as a whole has become known as the Axial Age. The areas involved are China, India, Greece and the Middle East.

For the most part, Armstrong organizes the material chronologically as well as along the shared thematic elements of the religions as they grew from changing and violent societies to some approximation of the Golden Rule. Each flowering involved the moving from self-involvment to loss of ego. Each flowering ended in more violent times.

The book ends on a note for the future but I'm not too sure about what it is. We have deviated from what the Axial Age thinkers believed and set forth. We need to get back to some of it. No one knows the whole truth.

Posted: Sun - April 22, 2007 at 07:12 PM        

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