Rating: 
Summary: The autobiography is better.
Review: A century ago, a man named Grant Allen wrote a book called "The evolution of the idea of God." G.K.Chesterton reviewed it by noting, "It would have been more interesting if God had written about the evolution of the idea of Grant Allen." Armstrong's book is fascinating at times, but she was hindered in her story by three encumbrances: first, she did not appear to be looking for God, but running from Him. Second, what she wrote was a history of purely human ideas and ideologies, from a Christian perspective, a history of idolatry. Her book is like looking at the moon under the assumption that the light itself is native to the moon. Third and most damningly, Armstrong has ignored all the actual evidence that God is not merely an idea, but a person who acts in history. (Such as the universe itself, the prophets, and miracles.)One aspect of that evidence which most people are unaware of, and that relates to the theme of this book, is the fact that monotheism is not solely a "western" concept. This is, perhaps, the great cover-up of comparative religion. One finds an awareness of the Creator even in countries where all the institutional and pedagogical institutions have been hostile to Him for hundreds of years, and the native religions appear to have no use for him, such as here in Japan. This is just as the Bible predicts: as Paul said, in our hearts, we know God is and that we are not Him, though we suppress that knowledge. The history of organized religion, east and west, is largely a history of men and women running from God. Armstrong's book is in a sense a kind of well-written and gosippy history of that flight, which is why it earned an extra star from me. I would like to suggest four books which give an aspect of the "history of God" Armstrong and her fellows routinely ignore: how the God of the Bible reveals Himself to non-Christian cultures. The first is Chesterton's Everlasting Man. The second is Eternity in Their Hearts, by Don Richardson, which in my opinion may be the most eye-opening book on religion published this century. The third is a book I wrote after reading Richardson's theories, and finding out that, in China at least, they rang true: True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture. I would also recommend that book God wrote on the evolution of the idea of Karen Armstrong, especially the first half of Romans.
Rating: 
Summary: Majestic, brilliant -- a Mahler symphony of a history
Review: Karen Armstrong has drawn together an immense, sometimes overwhelming, amount of information about the streams that make up the great river of monotheism. Like the wisdom in "The Varieties of Religious Experience," the conclusions she and the reader reach are hard-won, like an exhausting journey with no possible shortcuts, but priceless. They won't occur to -- or appeal to -- people with a blind allegiance to their own spiritual stories. But intelligent readers who are seeking deep understanding of their own religious backgrounds in one of the world's great "religions of God" will never be the same. Her work opens up new worlds.
Rating: 
Summary: Informative, Non-Judgemental, But Not A School
Review: ------------------------------------------------- Armstrong, in this book, has struck a popular western inquisitive feeling about the nature and meaning of God. With a masterful narrative style, she works the central idea of a pragmatic mono-theistic concept that may have been necessary for building modern civilizations. Although, the author does not extend the breadth of her analysis to cover Mesopotamian roots in the evolution of our concept of Deity, such as Manism of Ur, she does illustrate the point that the concept itself has evolved in history. Her point of a superior Islamic religion, follows naturally from that evolutionary treatement - Islam being the last of middle-eastern-rooted religions. Although, the author stops just short of expliciting any conclusions, one clearly feels the powerful message she is implying. As a matter of fact, delving into historic accounts, there is a well known account of Mohammed, Prophet of Islam, advising Ali, his intended successor, not to use violence in a certain situation because "you will ruin everything I've accomplished". It wasn't about God, but about building a socially just civilization unified by a single Deity. -------------------------------------------------
Rating: 
Summary: superficial and misleading
Review: Ms. Armstrong has done a poor job of relaying the essence of the three great monotheistic religions. She is terribly biased against Christianity and her narrative reveals a superficial understanding of biblical and church history and well as theology and philosophy. This reviewer would recommend reading either Jaraslov Pelikan's "The Christian Tradition" or J.N.D. Kelly's "Early Christian Doctrine's" to get a more accurate and insightful appreciation of the development of Christian ideas and doctrines. Since, I am less schooled in Jewish and Muslim traditions, I cannot recommend a good source, however, I'm sure that there are many better books on those traditions than what Ms. Armstrong presents.
Rating:
Summary: No meaningful insights into the rise of monotheism
Review: As a westerner interested in Hinduism and Hindu iconography, I undertook reading this book to learn how and why "monotheism" became an overweening idea in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and prompted these religions to overrun and destroy indigenous religions. This book failed to provide meaningful insights. Instead, I found the same weaknesses that other reviewers found. Ms. Armstrong glorifies Islam, especially its tolerance of so-called "rightly guided religion," whereas religious persecution throughout Moslem history is but a logical outcome of putting the Koran and Sunnah into practice. I also find little in the Koran, aside from "paying the poor rate," that justifies Ms. Armstrong's claim that Islam is a religion of social justice. The inglorious history of Christianity is well known, even to Christians, but Ms. Armstrong pours bile at the whole venture of western Christianity and civilization, which she must have bought into when she was a Roman Catholic nun. I agree that this book reflects her personal bitterness. The dissing of luminaries of western civilization such as Pascal, Newton, and Descartes in the chapter "Enlightenment" was too much to take. I came away persuaded that Hinduism espoused the highest thinking about God, even before the revealed religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam came to be. All the exalted concepts of God identified in this book can be found in Hinduism. Hinduism also teaches that every person must discover these truths for himself or herself - and be transformed by these truths.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent (though slightly-biased) overview
Review: Armstrong's knowledge of the subject is impressive and she has a singular ability to reduce complex ideas into concise form, not to mention the fact that she is also a great story-teller. The reader should be warned however,that, as in her History of Jerusalem, she can be critical of western Christianity to point of being anti-[western] Christian. She also leaves untouched the darker aspects of the history of Islam. But her anti-western biases aside, I recommend this book (with the above caveats) as an excellent overview of the subject.
Rating:
Summary: More like the history of why the world's insane
Review: Armstrong successfully plugs the reader into each culture by giving him a detailed account of the three major religions of the world. I, being a neophyte in the way of Islam, felt like fighting in a jihad after her astounding account of Muhammed and the way the Muslim people have progressed. Armstrong's research and insight is incredible and she also slips in a few of her own diatribes (ex: love is used to make up for an abscence in one's life.) One qualm I have is Armstrong, as a nun in the Catholic church, didn't focus near as much on Christianity. She also discounts all the miracles performed in the Bible and tells the reader how they should be interpreted. However, this book is the 101 for the history of God.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking history
Review: As some of the other reviewers claim, Karen Armstrong may not have gotten all the facts aboslutely correct; nevertheless, this book is an impressive collection of the way humanity has viewed, changed and adapted the concept of "God" through the ages. It is also correct to say that Armstrong is not solely laying out historical facts, but peppers her writings with her personal views throughtout. In my opinion this is a major plus, it helps make this book more than dry history. If you ever wondered or questioned, this book is an excellent introduction to understand the interaction between humans and their monotheistic faiths.
Rating: 
Summary: A book with some inaccuracies
Review: The author tries to tackle a serious topic but seems to lack the proper training to accomplish this. I am not sure if people created God or God created people, but most certainly the author has done some creating of her own. There are some mistakes from simple ones such as changing Ibn' Arabi's first name from Muhyi al-Din to Muid al-Din, to some philosophical misrepresentation of Arabi's thought. She relates to Ibn' Arabi that Mohammed was the Perfect Man of "his generation" which is totally false according to all Sufi or non Sufi traditions. If she had read some of Ibne Arabi's books either in Arabic or the English translations such as the " Bezel Of the wisdom", and " Sufi Path to knowledge" or "Tao of Islam" her book would have been more accurate, if indeed accuracy has any meaning nowadays among the religious or philosophy scholarly communities. To most ordinary non-scholar people accuracy is still somewhat important. The other inaccurate representation of the mystical Islam is the notion of " Imaginal World", which has gotten everyone so excited thanks to Corbin, and seems that the author, inspite of repeated warning by Corbin in his fine book creative imagination in the sufism of Ibne Arabi, she mistakes it with " Imagination/Imaginary" as a human faculty. Then she goes on to do the same misrepresentation about the idea of "Imaginal World" and the notion of hell heaven as used by Sadra. The readers are invited to read one of Sadra's work translated into English " The wisdom of the throne" for a first hand comparison. I think the author tried to handle too much and wished to publish the book too quick and didn't give herself enough time. Or maybe this the way the "Philosophers" do things, if we in the field of engineering and science did such a clumsy work, we would be sued out of business in no time. It seems to me that what is lacking among the philosophy and religious scholarly community is a procedure for"Quality control" and as long as this aspect is lacking people will have little regards or respect for books of this nature. Is it any wonder that nowadays most people equate the word " philosophy" with " non-sense", the responsibility for this attitude lies at the feet of " philosophers" themselves. They need to take their profession and their audience more seriously or else when it comes to "respectability" they will be at the bottom of the scale.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but a bit biased
Review: The author certainly has done her research and puts it together quite well. Most of the book is really about Islam and the first five books of the Jewish/Christian Bible. The comments regarding the bias to Islam and the lack of information regarding Paul are justified. I wish that the author would have provided a more compelling reason for her conclusion on the path she saw of most benefit - rather than simply providing a biased justification by way of eliminating the other paths by way of her displeasure with them. Some interesting information gleaned from the book was how enlightened you will be as to how many dead-ends you can encounter when discussing/debating religion. Some issues are simply a matter of faith.
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