Publication
Imprint: Edinburgh ; New York : Canongate Books, 2005. Context: Originally published in Great Britain in 2005 by Cannongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland. Series: The Myths (book 1). OCLC Number: 63186719. Physical: 1 volume : 159 pages ; 20 cm. Features: Includes bibliography.
Call number
Myth / Armst
ISBN
9781841958002
Original publication date
2004
Collections
CSS Library Notes
Description: Human beings have always been myth makers. Theologian Armstrong here investigates myth: what it is, how it has evolved, and why we still so desperately need it. She takes us from the Paleolithic period and the myths of the hunters, up to the Great Western Transformation of the last five hundred years and the discrediting of myth by science. The history of myth is the history of humanity, our stories and beliefs, our curiosity and attempts to understand the world, which link us to our ancestors and each other.--From publisher description.
Table of Contents: What is a myth? --
Palaeolithic Period : Mythology of the hunters (c. 20000 to 8000 BCE) --
Neolithic Period : Mythology of the farmers (c. 8000 to 4000 BCD) --
Early civilisations (c. 4000 to 800 BCE) --
Axial Age (c. 800 to 200 BCE) --
Post-Axial Period (c. 200 BCE to c. 1500 CE) --
Great Western Transformation (c. 1500 to 2000).
FY2017 /
Table of Contents: What is a myth? --
Palaeolithic Period : Mythology of the hunters (c. 20000 to 8000 BCE) --
Neolithic Period : Mythology of the farmers (c. 8000 to 4000 BCD) --
Early civilisations (c. 4000 to 800 BCE) --
Axial Age (c. 800 to 200 BCE) --
Post-Axial Period (c. 200 BCE to c. 1500 CE) --
Great Western Transformation (c. 1500 to 2000).
FY2017 /
Other editions
A short history of myth by Karen Armstrong (Hardcover)
Physical description
159 p.; 20 cm
Description
Human beings have always been mythmakers. Theologian Armstrong here investigates myth: what it is, how it has evolved, and why we still so desperately need it. She takes us from the Paleolithic period and the myths of the hunters, up to the Great Western Transformation of the last five hundred years and the discrediting of myth by science. The history of myth is the history of humanity, our stories and beliefs, our curiosity and attempts to understand the world, which link us to our ancestors and each other.--From publisher description.
Language
Original language
English
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User reviews
LibraryThing member drbubbles
There are three important components to this book: her conception of history, her conception of myth, and the relationship between history and myth. Her treatment of both myth and history is unsophisticated. In many ways, the book is perhaps best perceived as a meditation on the role of myth in
The second and third chapters, about the mythology of the Paleolithic and Neolithic, are abysmal. Her information about material culture of those periods seems to be lacking significantly. Her principal cited sources are three mythologists whose prehistoric information is now dated, and who weren't archaeologists in any case. Next to nothing is known of the beliefs of the people of those times, but you wouldn't realize that from this book. She gets dates wrong; she lumps cultural variation from across thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years into what are really more uninformed stereotypes than anything else (she seems actually to think Paleolithic people were "cavemen"); she accepts long-disproven vernacular beliefs about hunting & gathering ways of life, including dependence upon hunting (instead of gathering) as the primary means of food acquisition, the ostensible precariousness of hunting & gathering as a way of life, the necessity of agriculture before people could settle down and invent material complexity. She treats the appearance of agriculture as an event rather than the millenia-long process it was, and ignores the risks to health and social stability that accompanied it (lifespans of early agriculturalists were actually shorter than the lifespans of their hunting & gathering predecessors, because early agriculture was carb-rich and everything-else–poor). Most of her discussions of prehistoric myth are inferences premised upon the idea that prehistoric mythology survives recognizably in Classical (especially Greek) mythology, despite the fact that agriculture had been well-established in Europe and the Near East as long before high-classical Greece as high-classical Greece was before us today (and that's just the established agriculture, not emerging agriculture or even Paleolithic hunting & gathering). (On the other hand, she doesn't seem to buy in to that New Age-ified Paleolithic Mother Goddess nonsense.)
The fourth and fifth chapters are more interesting. I'm not competent to evaluate her explications of myth in particular historical circumstances, but she at least considers them within regional (rather than global) cultural contexts, has actual primary source material to draw upon, and makes some interesting and plausible arguments. In some cases, though, when I looked up the mythological references she cited, they didn't seem to offer all that much support to her argument.
The final chapter is basically a brief survey of modernity and its discontents, with several Modernist works of literature examined as latter-day mythology (Eliot's The Waste Land, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Joyce's Ulysses, Orwell's 1984, and several others). This has been done by others in greater detail and with more authority. There is nothing new in the chapter. Sadly, her notes are sparse and lack references that one might use to investigate the argument further.
The footnotes and perspective of the book reveal a very strong reliance upon the mythological ideas of Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Walter Burkert, in particular. In general, she conceives of myth in terms of religious belief, ritual practice, and psychology (as outlined by John Arnold in his Myth: a Very Short Introduction, vol. 111 in Oxford University Press's Very Short Introductions series. I didn't like that book when I read it, but I'm finding my reading of it to be useful), to the virtual exclusion of other perspectives on mythology. Myth is "only comprehensible in a liturgical context"; it "must lead to imitation or participation" [I forgot where I was going with this.]
Armstrong's view of history is distinctly progressivist. The first line of Chapter 2 refers to humans as having "completed their biological evolution" (which will come as a surprise to evolutionary and population biologists). It took urbanization to give rise to art and literature. The hope of the Modern era was that "humanity had entered a more positive era"; at any rate, it was "the last of the great revolutions of human experience."
She also exhibits a strongly universalist perspective on human behavior: all myth functions similarly for all peoples in similar cultural conditions. The details of various local mythologies may vary (e.g., China and the Near East), but they share broad themes that are determined, even prescribed, by cultural condition. The various major regional cultural changes throughout history are ascribed to tensions in national psyches arising from new material and behavioral conditions, with no consideration of systemic adaptation or reorganization. For a given cultural stage, the psychic tensions are similar between all nations, and their resolutions are the same (otherwise subsequent tensions and resolutions wouldn't be the same, but her argument needs them to be).
Combine progressivism and universalism and you get her characterization of historically new social and cultural conditions in terms of emerging cultural novelties rather than the overall character of "old + new": that is, change is substitutional rather than additive. There is little, if any, acknowledgment of cultural continuity; for Armstrong, cultural change seems to result in essential qualitative difference. Thus her discussion of the historical changes in the function of myth are based upon stereotypes so oversimplified that they're practically straw men. This is most clearly evident in her tacit sympathy for holding (para-)scientific thought responsible for the decline of myth in modern societies. It's quite clear, though, that even in Modern societies, myth retains a powerful hold on subpopulations (e.g., Christian fundamentalism ever since the Reformation). Yet for Armstrong, people change in their responses to myth; myth itself does not change. Myth itself remains historically stable because it is an eternal category, a mode of thought that is more or less commonly employed, rather than a cultural construction by which present circumstances are put in metaphysical perspective.
Curiously enough, she decries the modern linear mode of history for its inability to incorporate the always-alreadyness of myth as a moral or ethical force; but her book is a very good example of linear, unsubtle cause-and-effect history.
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history rather than an actual history, short or not, of myth (in terms of actual history, there's a large amount of unwarranted speculation — in other words, she just made $#¡† up). I can't imagine that it would be interesting to anyone with more than a shallow interest in the history of myth.The second and third chapters, about the mythology of the Paleolithic and Neolithic, are abysmal. Her information about material culture of those periods seems to be lacking significantly. Her principal cited sources are three mythologists whose prehistoric information is now dated, and who weren't archaeologists in any case. Next to nothing is known of the beliefs of the people of those times, but you wouldn't realize that from this book. She gets dates wrong; she lumps cultural variation from across thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years into what are really more uninformed stereotypes than anything else (she seems actually to think Paleolithic people were "cavemen"); she accepts long-disproven vernacular beliefs about hunting & gathering ways of life, including dependence upon hunting (instead of gathering) as the primary means of food acquisition, the ostensible precariousness of hunting & gathering as a way of life, the necessity of agriculture before people could settle down and invent material complexity. She treats the appearance of agriculture as an event rather than the millenia-long process it was, and ignores the risks to health and social stability that accompanied it (lifespans of early agriculturalists were actually shorter than the lifespans of their hunting & gathering predecessors, because early agriculture was carb-rich and everything-else–poor). Most of her discussions of prehistoric myth are inferences premised upon the idea that prehistoric mythology survives recognizably in Classical (especially Greek) mythology, despite the fact that agriculture had been well-established in Europe and the Near East as long before high-classical Greece as high-classical Greece was before us today (and that's just the established agriculture, not emerging agriculture or even Paleolithic hunting & gathering). (On the other hand, she doesn't seem to buy in to that New Age-ified Paleolithic Mother Goddess nonsense.)
The fourth and fifth chapters are more interesting. I'm not competent to evaluate her explications of myth in particular historical circumstances, but she at least considers them within regional (rather than global) cultural contexts, has actual primary source material to draw upon, and makes some interesting and plausible arguments. In some cases, though, when I looked up the mythological references she cited, they didn't seem to offer all that much support to her argument.
The final chapter is basically a brief survey of modernity and its discontents, with several Modernist works of literature examined as latter-day mythology (Eliot's The Waste Land, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Joyce's Ulysses, Orwell's 1984, and several others). This has been done by others in greater detail and with more authority. There is nothing new in the chapter. Sadly, her notes are sparse and lack references that one might use to investigate the argument further.
The footnotes and perspective of the book reveal a very strong reliance upon the mythological ideas of Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, and Walter Burkert, in particular. In general, she conceives of myth in terms of religious belief, ritual practice, and psychology (as outlined by John Arnold in his Myth: a Very Short Introduction, vol. 111 in Oxford University Press's Very Short Introductions series. I didn't like that book when I read it, but I'm finding my reading of it to be useful), to the virtual exclusion of other perspectives on mythology. Myth is "only comprehensible in a liturgical context"; it "must lead to imitation or participation" [I forgot where I was going with this.]
Armstrong's view of history is distinctly progressivist. The first line of Chapter 2 refers to humans as having "completed their biological evolution" (which will come as a surprise to evolutionary and population biologists). It took urbanization to give rise to art and literature. The hope of the Modern era was that "humanity had entered a more positive era"; at any rate, it was "the last of the great revolutions of human experience."
She also exhibits a strongly universalist perspective on human behavior: all myth functions similarly for all peoples in similar cultural conditions. The details of various local mythologies may vary (e.g., China and the Near East), but they share broad themes that are determined, even prescribed, by cultural condition. The various major regional cultural changes throughout history are ascribed to tensions in national psyches arising from new material and behavioral conditions, with no consideration of systemic adaptation or reorganization. For a given cultural stage, the psychic tensions are similar between all nations, and their resolutions are the same (otherwise subsequent tensions and resolutions wouldn't be the same, but her argument needs them to be).
Combine progressivism and universalism and you get her characterization of historically new social and cultural conditions in terms of emerging cultural novelties rather than the overall character of "old + new": that is, change is substitutional rather than additive. There is little, if any, acknowledgment of cultural continuity; for Armstrong, cultural change seems to result in essential qualitative difference. Thus her discussion of the historical changes in the function of myth are based upon stereotypes so oversimplified that they're practically straw men. This is most clearly evident in her tacit sympathy for holding (para-)scientific thought responsible for the decline of myth in modern societies. It's quite clear, though, that even in Modern societies, myth retains a powerful hold on subpopulations (e.g., Christian fundamentalism ever since the Reformation). Yet for Armstrong, people change in their responses to myth; myth itself does not change. Myth itself remains historically stable because it is an eternal category, a mode of thought that is more or less commonly employed, rather than a cultural construction by which present circumstances are put in metaphysical perspective.
Curiously enough, she decries the modern linear mode of history for its inability to incorporate the always-alreadyness of myth as a moral or ethical force; but her book is a very good example of linear, unsubtle cause-and-effect history.
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LibraryThing member DieFledermaus
This book was a quick, interesting read and it succeeded in sparking my interest in reading other comparative religion/mythology texts. While Armstrong is able to describe nuances in a multitude of beliefs, she tends to simplistically depict the recent past and present. I wondered a bit about some
The dominant types of beliefs and reasons for the beliefs as well as their purpose are described for each of the ages – the Paleolithic, Neolithic, early civilizations, the Axial age, the post-Axial age and the great Western transformation. In the Paleolithic myths, the focus is on how they relate to hunting. The Sky God is found in a variety of religions and there are specific prohibitions and rituals related to hunting. A number of religions also depicted people as very close to the gods, with a lost paradise just out of sight. The Neolithic was an age for the gods of agriculture, with myths relating to violence, sexual fertility and renewal. The myths of the early civilizations portrayed the city as a divine place with the gods farther away than ever. In the Axial age, the major Western religions were developed and part of the struggle was defining themselves relative to the earlier beliefs. The main religions were developed further in the post-Axial age. Armstrong defines the great Western transformation from 1500 to the present and the focus is on the switch to logical, pragmatic thinking and the loss of the culture of belief.
By definition, this book had to simplify an enormous amount of material. Still, the author was able to incorporate a number of nuanced views of the beliefs in the earlier periods. I did wonder how much of this was her interpretation vs. based on evidence. Many of the sources seemed to be secondary. I can’t fault her for being somewhat more clearcut on cause and effect, before and after because there’s not enough time to go through all the evidence. For example, the author will say something like traumatic event X led to person Y reinterpreting this myth and writing Z. And saying something such as the myth is no longer relevant so people looked for something else is obviously not going to be as simple as that but those types of examples didn’t bother me too much.
It did bother me that she provided an overly simplified view of the present skepticism. There were a couple sentences that irritated me – one saying we had lost our appreciation for imaginative thinking and the other implying that the purpose of all religions today is to “get something” from the gods. I would have let this go if the last section hadn’t been what I considered overly reductive. For example, she says that we no longer have any mythic heroes to look up to as an example and cites “mythologized” figures such as Elvis and Princess Diana who can interest but not inspire. Would she say the same with other people such as MLK Jr, Gandhi or Mother Theresa – people who have also been heavily mythologized, but for their good deeds (with faults brushed away)? She also says the scientist/inventor is the new hero but that doesn’t always seem to be the case – political/ national figures still figure largely, as well artists and writers, and I don’t know where she’d put philosophers – many grapple with finding meaning in life, something she said is currently lacking, but the ones that were cited were usually quoted as anti-religious or individualistic.
Armstrong repeatedly mentions how in earlier periods ritual was very important and the myths were not taken literally. However, she discusses in the last section the death of myths and only briefly brings up the fact that some groups now believe that everything must be literally true instead of symbolic. Since this contradicts her many previous assertions, it was odd that she did not go into this more in depth. She also mentions destructive modern myths but that is also glossed over. Literary analysis that she provides with a mythical slant is interesting, but sometimes the criteria seems to be rigid. Probably most of my complaints are due to the fact that this age is ongoing while the others can be looked back on and summarized and that the modern era is the most familiar.
In the final pages, Armstrong answers the questions she poses – how will we live with meaning, learn compassion and find examples to follow? – with the reply that literature can fill the void of myth. Not going to disagree with that.
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of the things she stated as fact and many of the references were secondary sources. The dominant types of beliefs and reasons for the beliefs as well as their purpose are described for each of the ages – the Paleolithic, Neolithic, early civilizations, the Axial age, the post-Axial age and the great Western transformation. In the Paleolithic myths, the focus is on how they relate to hunting. The Sky God is found in a variety of religions and there are specific prohibitions and rituals related to hunting. A number of religions also depicted people as very close to the gods, with a lost paradise just out of sight. The Neolithic was an age for the gods of agriculture, with myths relating to violence, sexual fertility and renewal. The myths of the early civilizations portrayed the city as a divine place with the gods farther away than ever. In the Axial age, the major Western religions were developed and part of the struggle was defining themselves relative to the earlier beliefs. The main religions were developed further in the post-Axial age. Armstrong defines the great Western transformation from 1500 to the present and the focus is on the switch to logical, pragmatic thinking and the loss of the culture of belief.
By definition, this book had to simplify an enormous amount of material. Still, the author was able to incorporate a number of nuanced views of the beliefs in the earlier periods. I did wonder how much of this was her interpretation vs. based on evidence. Many of the sources seemed to be secondary. I can’t fault her for being somewhat more clearcut on cause and effect, before and after because there’s not enough time to go through all the evidence. For example, the author will say something like traumatic event X led to person Y reinterpreting this myth and writing Z. And saying something such as the myth is no longer relevant so people looked for something else is obviously not going to be as simple as that but those types of examples didn’t bother me too much.
It did bother me that she provided an overly simplified view of the present skepticism. There were a couple sentences that irritated me – one saying we had lost our appreciation for imaginative thinking and the other implying that the purpose of all religions today is to “get something” from the gods. I would have let this go if the last section hadn’t been what I considered overly reductive. For example, she says that we no longer have any mythic heroes to look up to as an example and cites “mythologized” figures such as Elvis and Princess Diana who can interest but not inspire. Would she say the same with other people such as MLK Jr, Gandhi or Mother Theresa – people who have also been heavily mythologized, but for their good deeds (with faults brushed away)? She also says the scientist/inventor is the new hero but that doesn’t always seem to be the case – political/ national figures still figure largely, as well artists and writers, and I don’t know where she’d put philosophers – many grapple with finding meaning in life, something she said is currently lacking, but the ones that were cited were usually quoted as anti-religious or individualistic.
Armstrong repeatedly mentions how in earlier periods ritual was very important and the myths were not taken literally. However, she discusses in the last section the death of myths and only briefly brings up the fact that some groups now believe that everything must be literally true instead of symbolic. Since this contradicts her many previous assertions, it was odd that she did not go into this more in depth. She also mentions destructive modern myths but that is also glossed over. Literary analysis that she provides with a mythical slant is interesting, but sometimes the criteria seems to be rigid. Probably most of my complaints are due to the fact that this age is ongoing while the others can be looked back on and summarized and that the modern era is the most familiar.
In the final pages, Armstrong answers the questions she poses – how will we live with meaning, learn compassion and find examples to follow? – with the reply that literature can fill the void of myth. Not going to disagree with that.
Show Less
LibraryThing member the_hag
A Short History of Myth is, apparently, the first of a very large series currently in the making (by the publisher, Canongate) which eventually could include volumes by up to 100 authors. I've actually managed to read this one as my 5th in the series, rather than the first (having already read
In A Short History of Myth the author takes us on a journey which follows the development of myth from prehistoric to modern times. With Armstrong we learn that myths are not just stories, they are a fundamental part of human development as evidenced by the similar myths found from group to group, culture to culture. Each section deals with a specific time period and each is tied to the past and the future of myth in action in the development of human beings. I found particularly interesting the area where Armstrong demonstrates how myths changed as we developed agriculture and then became industrialized...with industrialization bringing with it a backlash against religion and mythology in general. Though none of this was new to me, I found the concise way in which Armstrong details all of it to be quite compelling and I think, useful to readers not familiar with them or who have not read or studied mythology in a while and are undertaking this series...it's a great reintroduction and a fine way to start off this series!
Clearly, this is not a definitive book on mythology, or I think, even meant to be taken as an introductory text for study on the subject, as in it's not meant to be a used as a textbook. I think it's really meant to give the lay person grounding in the role of myth in society/people's lives throughout history, something the publisher must feel was necessary to include as part of a series of re-versioned myths. It's not all that long (coming in at 150 pages), nor all that in depth (again, 150 pages...) and some of the sections seem to have been added in out of necessity and are not explained at length at all (oriental mythology for example). That said, Armstrong's writing is clean and concise, the text easy to understand and serves to lay a solid foundation for the rest of the series, one certainly wouldn't want to stop here if one's goal were to study the purpose of myth in people's lives (now or in the past). If nothing else, this volume would make an excellent discussion group choice, as it opens many avenues in a very short/concise volume. I give it a solid B, because it probably would not be of much use outside of this particular series, due to the length and general brevity of the text.
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Weight, The Penelopiad, Lion's Honey, and The Helmut of Horror). In A Short History of Myth the author takes us on a journey which follows the development of myth from prehistoric to modern times. With Armstrong we learn that myths are not just stories, they are a fundamental part of human development as evidenced by the similar myths found from group to group, culture to culture. Each section deals with a specific time period and each is tied to the past and the future of myth in action in the development of human beings. I found particularly interesting the area where Armstrong demonstrates how myths changed as we developed agriculture and then became industrialized...with industrialization bringing with it a backlash against religion and mythology in general. Though none of this was new to me, I found the concise way in which Armstrong details all of it to be quite compelling and I think, useful to readers not familiar with them or who have not read or studied mythology in a while and are undertaking this series...it's a great reintroduction and a fine way to start off this series!
Clearly, this is not a definitive book on mythology, or I think, even meant to be taken as an introductory text for study on the subject, as in it's not meant to be a used as a textbook. I think it's really meant to give the lay person grounding in the role of myth in society/people's lives throughout history, something the publisher must feel was necessary to include as part of a series of re-versioned myths. It's not all that long (coming in at 150 pages), nor all that in depth (again, 150 pages...) and some of the sections seem to have been added in out of necessity and are not explained at length at all (oriental mythology for example). That said, Armstrong's writing is clean and concise, the text easy to understand and serves to lay a solid foundation for the rest of the series, one certainly wouldn't want to stop here if one's goal were to study the purpose of myth in people's lives (now or in the past). If nothing else, this volume would make an excellent discussion group choice, as it opens many avenues in a very short/concise volume. I give it a solid B, because it probably would not be of much use outside of this particular series, due to the length and general brevity of the text.
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LibraryThing member Aeyan
From whence did myth come? What did they entail, explain, engender? When has a myth slipped into obscurity? Why are they so desperately needed? Will we be able to survive their loss?
Karen Armstrong engages these nigh unanswerable queries in her chronological overview of the mythos of humanity.
Of particular note are the open-ended musings she introduces that wonder whether the modern lack of a sustaining mythology can be partially or even fully abetted by the surge in art, and specifically the novel, as a form of mythic source. While she believes that for a myth to truly do its work it must be encountered within a sacred space, being rendered merely prosaic by profane settings, she also seems hopeful that art will 'step into this priestly role' and provide a way, as myth does and did, to enable us to see from a multitude of perspectives, to achieve a transcendent understanding beyond self-interest, to circumvent the ennui and lethargy that has enveloped the modern experience. Her short history was a stirring reminder to my personal mythos of how transportative myth has always been for me.
Karen Armstrong engages these nigh unanswerable queries in her chronological overview of the mythos of humanity.
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While being a perhaps oversimplified progression of mythic time periods - progressing from the Palaeolithic stirrings of hunter-gatherers to the agrarian revolution of human understanding, stopping to investigate the budding civilization building and continuing to the Axial age of burgeoning human spirituality, dwelling upon the receding movement of the Post-Axial age, until arriving at what she refers to as the Great Western Transformation - Armstrong manages to ponder some ineffable matters within a short space. As an overview of periodic mythology, her short history is useful as a sort of guidepost, but it is the deeper questions she ponders that elevate the book beyond a typical mythologic atlas. Of particular note are the open-ended musings she introduces that wonder whether the modern lack of a sustaining mythology can be partially or even fully abetted by the surge in art, and specifically the novel, as a form of mythic source. While she believes that for a myth to truly do its work it must be encountered within a sacred space, being rendered merely prosaic by profane settings, she also seems hopeful that art will 'step into this priestly role' and provide a way, as myth does and did, to enable us to see from a multitude of perspectives, to achieve a transcendent understanding beyond self-interest, to circumvent the ennui and lethargy that has enveloped the modern experience. Her short history was a stirring reminder to my personal mythos of how transportative myth has always been for me.
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LibraryThing member Lunar
This extended essay on mythology seems to have a good thesis, but it is poorly executed in parts. Additionally, the final chapter focusing on the modern era rather deviates from its thesis about the role of mythology in daily life, instead unecessarily describing the conflict between rationalism
The first few chapters on Paleolithic and Neolithic mythology seemed very scant in examples and evidence. You can almost sense that the premise she is trying to support is true, but I had wished there had been stronger evidence presented. She argues that Paleolithic peoples used mythology to ritualize the behavior that sustained their survival, like hunting deities that hunters would invoke or child-bearing deities to aid in child-birth, and through proper magical emulation of these archetypal beings, achieve success. With the Neolithic period, she argues that agriculture engendered a different kind of myth-making. Instead of ritualizing everyday behavior, the rituals of worship and prayer take on a life of their own less strongly associated with their means of survival. At this point in the text I felt like I wanted to say that this "divorce" was because of the nature of agriculture itself, which has a prolonged period of time between planting and harvesting, between action and reward, but Armstrong doesn't make that argument. She makes observations that one feels she should follow up on, like the observation that Egypt's mythology of a sky goddess and an earth god is an exception to the tendency for myths in other cultures to have a sky god and an earth goddess, yet she doesn't explain why Egypt was the exception. I had to wonder, "Maybe it's because they lived in the middle of the desert and didn't see the earth as naturally fertile since their agriculture was determined not by the land, but by the Nile."
I think the best part of her thesis is borne out by her discussion of the "Axial Age," when urbanized peoples became less convinced that worship and prayer would solve their problems and instead a code of behavior would keep society stable and flourishing. And so the concept of "Divine Law" became the dominant mythos. It was also here that I realized what our current predominant mythos truly is. Armstrong makes a rather understated but important point that myth has not always meant "untrue," but that like Aesop's Fables, while literally not true, did contain some kind of "truth." It may not be true that lawgiver gods came down with stone tablets to establish a new social order, but it is true that a system of laws can create a reliably stable society. So here this book made me think about what it is that we currently hold to be "true" that, while not supported by empirical evidence, is invoked as correct because of the social order they bring. The mythos that permeates our lives in the modern era is the mythology of rights, inalienable rights which people believe to be "endowed by their creator." But rights are no more than an idea. They are not subject to investigation through objective evidence and are therefore said to be simply "self-evident." They are believed to must be upheld as inviolable by the older mythology of law. It is here in the "post-axial age" that Armstrong goes entirely off-target. Not one mention of the Magna Carta. Not one mention of the American Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. And yet the modern conception of human rights fits so well into the role that mytholgy has traditionally played. She tells us that our modern lives are devoid of the myths which serve to inspire us, which any observer of the history of struggles for rights will find to be an untrue statement.
Her evidence is not well presented, but her thesis has so much potential that I cannot give the book a low rating. It is worth reading at least for the ideas about myth which it presents, though not for its grasp of history.
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versus mythology and not describing what came next.The first few chapters on Paleolithic and Neolithic mythology seemed very scant in examples and evidence. You can almost sense that the premise she is trying to support is true, but I had wished there had been stronger evidence presented. She argues that Paleolithic peoples used mythology to ritualize the behavior that sustained their survival, like hunting deities that hunters would invoke or child-bearing deities to aid in child-birth, and through proper magical emulation of these archetypal beings, achieve success. With the Neolithic period, she argues that agriculture engendered a different kind of myth-making. Instead of ritualizing everyday behavior, the rituals of worship and prayer take on a life of their own less strongly associated with their means of survival. At this point in the text I felt like I wanted to say that this "divorce" was because of the nature of agriculture itself, which has a prolonged period of time between planting and harvesting, between action and reward, but Armstrong doesn't make that argument. She makes observations that one feels she should follow up on, like the observation that Egypt's mythology of a sky goddess and an earth god is an exception to the tendency for myths in other cultures to have a sky god and an earth goddess, yet she doesn't explain why Egypt was the exception. I had to wonder, "Maybe it's because they lived in the middle of the desert and didn't see the earth as naturally fertile since their agriculture was determined not by the land, but by the Nile."
I think the best part of her thesis is borne out by her discussion of the "Axial Age," when urbanized peoples became less convinced that worship and prayer would solve their problems and instead a code of behavior would keep society stable and flourishing. And so the concept of "Divine Law" became the dominant mythos. It was also here that I realized what our current predominant mythos truly is. Armstrong makes a rather understated but important point that myth has not always meant "untrue," but that like Aesop's Fables, while literally not true, did contain some kind of "truth." It may not be true that lawgiver gods came down with stone tablets to establish a new social order, but it is true that a system of laws can create a reliably stable society. So here this book made me think about what it is that we currently hold to be "true" that, while not supported by empirical evidence, is invoked as correct because of the social order they bring. The mythos that permeates our lives in the modern era is the mythology of rights, inalienable rights which people believe to be "endowed by their creator." But rights are no more than an idea. They are not subject to investigation through objective evidence and are therefore said to be simply "self-evident." They are believed to must be upheld as inviolable by the older mythology of law. It is here in the "post-axial age" that Armstrong goes entirely off-target. Not one mention of the Magna Carta. Not one mention of the American Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. And yet the modern conception of human rights fits so well into the role that mytholgy has traditionally played. She tells us that our modern lives are devoid of the myths which serve to inspire us, which any observer of the history of struggles for rights will find to be an untrue statement.
Her evidence is not well presented, but her thesis has so much potential that I cannot give the book a low rating. It is worth reading at least for the ideas about myth which it presents, though not for its grasp of history.
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LibraryThing member spacecommuter
A better name might have been "A Short Defense of Myth." I've always thought myths were attempts by primitive civilizations to explain the things that we've explained with science - creation myths because they didn't have instruments that supported the Big Bang theory; elemental gods to explain
My favote passage is her response to the disdain with which modern people look at myth; a product of the Enlightenment and Age of Reason that pushed anything not supported by direct evidence (myth, religion, etc.) into the fringes of public thought. It's a good reason why religious types are so radical today - they were shut out of the mainstream before Darwin's ink had dried.
"When we contemplate the dark epiphanies of the twentieth century, we see that modern anxiety is not simply the result of self-indulgent neurosis. We are facing something unprecedented. Other societies saw death as a transition to other modes of being. They did not nurture simplistic and vulgar ideas of an afterlife, but devised rites and myths that helped people to face the unspeakable. ...There is a moving and even heroic asceticism in the current rejection of myth. But purely linear, logical and historical modes of thought have debarred many of us from therapies and devices that have enabled men and women to draw on the full resources of their humanity in order to live with the unacceptable.
"We may be more spohisticated in material ways, but we have not advanced spiritually beyond the Axial Age: because of our supression of mythos we may even have regressed. We still long to 'get beyond' our immediate circumstances, and to enter a 'full time', a more intense, fulfilling existence. We try to enter this dimension by means of art, rock music, drugs or by entering the larger-than-life perspective of film. We still seek heroes. Elvis Presley and Princess Diana were both made into isntant mythical beings, even objects of religious cult. But there is something unbalanced about this adulation. The myth of the hero was not intended to provide us with icons to admire, but was designed to tap into the vein of heroism within ourselves. Myth must lead to imitation or participation, not passive contemplation. We no longer know how to manage our mythical lives in a way that is spiritually challending and transformative.
"We must disabuse ourselves of the nineteenth-century fallacy that myth is false or that it represents an inferior mode of thought. ...We are myth-making creatures and, during the twentieth century, we saw some very destructive modern myths, which have ended in massacre and genocide. ...These distructive mythologies have been narrowly racial, ethnic, denominational and egotistic, an attempt to exalt the self by demonising the other. ...We cannot counter these bad myths with reason alone, because undiluted logos cannot deal with such deep-rooted, unexorcised fears, desires and neuroses. That is the role of an ethically and spritually informed mythology."
You would think someone would have thrown Canongate a parade to herald the creation of their Myths series, but no. This book is not the explosive, hold-on-to-your-hat intro this series deserves, but the passage above, more than the rest of the book, is what folks should keep in mind when they hold Atwood and Winterson's books in their hands. By reading the books that follow, you are becoming an accomplice to Armstrong's vision of creating Countermyths to our logical-yet-inhuman way of life today.
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climatological and geological phenomena, etc. Armstrong offers a much smarter and more likely opinion: that myths reflect humankind's craving for transcendance, attempts to rectify the ambivance they feel about their own inevitable deaths and having to hunt their fellow creatures, for example. My favote passage is her response to the disdain with which modern people look at myth; a product of the Enlightenment and Age of Reason that pushed anything not supported by direct evidence (myth, religion, etc.) into the fringes of public thought. It's a good reason why religious types are so radical today - they were shut out of the mainstream before Darwin's ink had dried.
"When we contemplate the dark epiphanies of the twentieth century, we see that modern anxiety is not simply the result of self-indulgent neurosis. We are facing something unprecedented. Other societies saw death as a transition to other modes of being. They did not nurture simplistic and vulgar ideas of an afterlife, but devised rites and myths that helped people to face the unspeakable. ...There is a moving and even heroic asceticism in the current rejection of myth. But purely linear, logical and historical modes of thought have debarred many of us from therapies and devices that have enabled men and women to draw on the full resources of their humanity in order to live with the unacceptable.
"We may be more spohisticated in material ways, but we have not advanced spiritually beyond the Axial Age: because of our supression of mythos we may even have regressed. We still long to 'get beyond' our immediate circumstances, and to enter a 'full time', a more intense, fulfilling existence. We try to enter this dimension by means of art, rock music, drugs or by entering the larger-than-life perspective of film. We still seek heroes. Elvis Presley and Princess Diana were both made into isntant mythical beings, even objects of religious cult. But there is something unbalanced about this adulation. The myth of the hero was not intended to provide us with icons to admire, but was designed to tap into the vein of heroism within ourselves. Myth must lead to imitation or participation, not passive contemplation. We no longer know how to manage our mythical lives in a way that is spiritually challending and transformative.
"We must disabuse ourselves of the nineteenth-century fallacy that myth is false or that it represents an inferior mode of thought. ...We are myth-making creatures and, during the twentieth century, we saw some very destructive modern myths, which have ended in massacre and genocide. ...These distructive mythologies have been narrowly racial, ethnic, denominational and egotistic, an attempt to exalt the self by demonising the other. ...We cannot counter these bad myths with reason alone, because undiluted logos cannot deal with such deep-rooted, unexorcised fears, desires and neuroses. That is the role of an ethically and spritually informed mythology."
You would think someone would have thrown Canongate a parade to herald the creation of their Myths series, but no. This book is not the explosive, hold-on-to-your-hat intro this series deserves, but the passage above, more than the rest of the book, is what folks should keep in mind when they hold Atwood and Winterson's books in their hands. By reading the books that follow, you are becoming an accomplice to Armstrong's vision of creating Countermyths to our logical-yet-inhuman way of life today.
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LibraryThing member CurrerBell
I have a great admiration for Armstrong as an historian of religion, but this is one book where she simply falls flat. It's a sophomoric book report that's nothing more than extensive quotations, paraphrasals, and footnotings of Mircea Eliade.
LibraryThing member WholeHouseLibrary
This was a 3-CD unabridged Library version. I have very mixed feelings about this book. Although I can’t deny that Ms. Armstrong did a tremendous amount of research, however I don’t see how she reached the conclusions she did based on the facts she provided. Her mantra throughout the book, was
The problem with listening to a book while driving up a highway is the extreme difficulty of taking notes. As such, I couldn’t begin to provide specific examples, save one near the end of the book. She claims that all of the ills of modern times, citing the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, among several others examples, are because we have lost our ability to relate to myths. We are have lost our moral compass (my words, not hers) because nothing is sacred to us. I was of the impression that the attacks were planned and carried out by people who strongly believed in their myths. I’m glad she set the record straight for me.
Her final words are that it is today’s artists and writers, novelists primarily, that are providing the new myths that we latch on to today. I can’t argue with that, but why anyone would form a religion around one of these works is beyond my comprehension.
This book was narrated flawlessly by Sandra Burr.
I wrote the above almost two weeks ago. I’ve done a bit of research in the mean time. There is a series of books that begin with “A Short History of…” and a requirement, apparently, is that each book is exactly 150 pages in length. My guess is that Ms. Armstrong actually wrote a much larger book, and had to dilute it significantly in order to make it fit the format. That’s everyone’s loss, in my opinion. I won’t be looking into any more of this series.
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something along the line of (not an exact quote): Myths are something that may (or may not) have occurred in the past, but continue to happen even now. That’s as best I can remember it. In short, if one (truly) participates in the learning of a mythology, it lives on in that person.The problem with listening to a book while driving up a highway is the extreme difficulty of taking notes. As such, I couldn’t begin to provide specific examples, save one near the end of the book. She claims that all of the ills of modern times, citing the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, among several others examples, are because we have lost our ability to relate to myths. We are have lost our moral compass (my words, not hers) because nothing is sacred to us. I was of the impression that the attacks were planned and carried out by people who strongly believed in their myths. I’m glad she set the record straight for me.
Her final words are that it is today’s artists and writers, novelists primarily, that are providing the new myths that we latch on to today. I can’t argue with that, but why anyone would form a religion around one of these works is beyond my comprehension.
This book was narrated flawlessly by Sandra Burr.
I wrote the above almost two weeks ago. I’ve done a bit of research in the mean time. There is a series of books that begin with “A Short History of…” and a requirement, apparently, is that each book is exactly 150 pages in length. My guess is that Ms. Armstrong actually wrote a much larger book, and had to dilute it significantly in order to make it fit the format. That’s everyone’s loss, in my opinion. I won’t be looking into any more of this series.
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LibraryThing member Stbalbach
Short book that provides a survey-like overview of the different stages of myth from Palaeolithic (hunters) -> Neolithic (farmers) -> Early Civilizations (4000-800 BC) -> Axial Age (800-200 BC) -> Post-Axial (200-1500 AD) -> Great Western Transformation (1500-2000 AD).
This book is meant to be the
This book is meant to be the
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opening "Preface" for a series of books by various authors from the publisher, about myth; so it's really more of a very general readers introduction incorporating some of the most mainstream-common views on myth and is not meant to be authoritative or in-depth, almost an extended essay. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
I've felt that some of Karen Armstrong's books -- most notably "A History of God" -- tried to do too much in too little space, but "A Short History of Myth" is a beautifully economical little text. I'm the most general of general readers on this subject, but in this one, the author lays out the
It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that the book falls apart a little in its last pages. Even though she posits earlier that people still seek transcendence through any number of activities, including art, drugs, sport, sex, and pop music, Armstrong believes that global modernity is essentially post-mythical, and that this lack has brought about severe psychic damage. It's not a terrible argument, when one considers the twentieth centuries various fanaticisms, but the author's indication of art, specifically the art of the novel, as a possible solution seems far-fetched. The novel's essentially a product of modernity, after all, and while many people take solace in fiction, I can't see it serving as any society's foundational myth. It's also a bit strange -- though she's working in a very constrained space here -- that the author doesn't really touch on Freudian psychology as a modern analogue to myth-making.
Despite these qualms, as a person who's generally unacquainted with this subject, I thought that the author packed an enormous amount of big thoughts into a small space here. I can see why specialists would object to certain sections of it, but this one sparked my interest and made me aware of how much I don't know about this important subject. I will probably start looking around for next steps. Finally, although I don't usually mention this sort of thing, I have to say that the Cannongate edition of this one I found was just lovely: a handsome little paperback embossed with graphics reminiscent of cave paintings. Find that one if you can.
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broad changes that have occurred in human civilization over the last twenty thousand or so years and ably demonstrates how our myths have adapted to give our lives meaning and purpose. Armstrong is also very good at defining and reiterating what myths are and what they are for to her inevitably modern audience, sensing, correctly, I think that most citizens of the twenty-first century will find it difficult to conceive of a way of thinking that lies well outside the scientific, literal, and historically oriented thought patterns difficult that have been inculcated in us for generations now. In doing so, the author also shows a rare sensitivity to and understanding of a largely vanished way of thinking, stressing to her readers over and over again that myths' functions were unifying and therapeutic and that their "veracity" was never really a question that people in prehistoric times would have sought to address. Armstrong's writing also communicates how desperate many premodern peoples' struggles for survival really were, and which goes a long way toward explaining why so many of the early myths here can seem overwhelmingly intense, even to modern readers. For many of the people that Armstrong describes, life and death weren't at all abstract at any stage of their lives.It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that the book falls apart a little in its last pages. Even though she posits earlier that people still seek transcendence through any number of activities, including art, drugs, sport, sex, and pop music, Armstrong believes that global modernity is essentially post-mythical, and that this lack has brought about severe psychic damage. It's not a terrible argument, when one considers the twentieth centuries various fanaticisms, but the author's indication of art, specifically the art of the novel, as a possible solution seems far-fetched. The novel's essentially a product of modernity, after all, and while many people take solace in fiction, I can't see it serving as any society's foundational myth. It's also a bit strange -- though she's working in a very constrained space here -- that the author doesn't really touch on Freudian psychology as a modern analogue to myth-making.
Despite these qualms, as a person who's generally unacquainted with this subject, I thought that the author packed an enormous amount of big thoughts into a small space here. I can see why specialists would object to certain sections of it, but this one sparked my interest and made me aware of how much I don't know about this important subject. I will probably start looking around for next steps. Finally, although I don't usually mention this sort of thing, I have to say that the Cannongate edition of this one I found was just lovely: a handsome little paperback embossed with graphics reminiscent of cave paintings. Find that one if you can.
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LibraryThing member Carlie
The author explains mythology's origins and the purposes that myths have served throughout history. Myths are supposed to teach us something and help us to understand the world around us, help us identify with others, and allow us to experience transcendence. In modern times, we have replaced
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traditional myths with other forms of art, such as paintings and novels, but the messages remain the same. This book provides a good, short overview without getting too bogged down in the specifics of each myth; rather it explains why myths exist at all. Show Less
LibraryThing member lbowman
I just finished Karen Armstrong's "A Short History of Myth". She did a good job. All kinds of things I disagree with, in the parts I know anything about, and all kinds of things she skipped over far too quickly - very likely because she was told "keep it to 150 pages". But she writes it from the
And I don't know what her own beliefs are. (I just googled: she spent 7 years in a convent, came out an atheist, failed her PhD oral at Oxford 3 years later, was fired from her job teaching English at a girl's school 6 years after that, and shortly after that was diagnosed with epilepsy. But, she says, it all came out for the best. she now describes her religious beliefs as "freelance monotheist".) But at least she doesn't dismiss either side of the question out of hand. Myth fills human needs for connection with the sacred. She does not express an opinion one way or the other on whether 'the sacred' really exists, though she argues quite compellingly that we need it (even if it doesn't). But at least she doesn't rule out the possibility.
This is the dimension that's missing from the myth classes I teach. I never talk about that.
She says,
"Since her writing career took off, Armstrong's communion with God occurs in the library, where she spends up to three years researching her books, which are as densely packed with detail as her conversations. "I get my spirituality in study," she said. "The Jews say it happens, sometimes, studying the Torah.""
I get that sometimes. I don't study much or I would get it more. I wonder how many things I avoid because when I do them God talks to me and it's kind of scary.
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perspective of someone who at least grasps how much human beings have always desperately needed a connection to the sacred, and argues that that was always the primary function fulfilled by myth. Along with ritual, sacred music, and the whole panoply of how we attempt to (re)connect with the divine world.And I don't know what her own beliefs are. (I just googled: she spent 7 years in a convent, came out an atheist, failed her PhD oral at Oxford 3 years later, was fired from her job teaching English at a girl's school 6 years after that, and shortly after that was diagnosed with epilepsy. But, she says, it all came out for the best. she now describes her religious beliefs as "freelance monotheist".) But at least she doesn't dismiss either side of the question out of hand. Myth fills human needs for connection with the sacred. She does not express an opinion one way or the other on whether 'the sacred' really exists, though she argues quite compellingly that we need it (even if it doesn't). But at least she doesn't rule out the possibility.
This is the dimension that's missing from the myth classes I teach. I never talk about that.
She says,
"Since her writing career took off, Armstrong's communion with God occurs in the library, where she spends up to three years researching her books, which are as densely packed with detail as her conversations. "I get my spirituality in study," she said. "The Jews say it happens, sometimes, studying the Torah.""
I get that sometimes. I don't study much or I would get it more. I wonder how many things I avoid because when I do them God talks to me and it's kind of scary.
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LibraryThing member Ebba
I found this book somewhat interesting. Since I am new to the subject of myths I could not follow all the references and found it at times very confusing. It gives me a lot of tips of more interesting reads though. I think I would find it more useful after reading up on the different myths in more
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detail. Show Less
LibraryThing member Laurenbdavis
An excellent essay exploring what myths are, how they evolved and why we need them. Of particular interest is the last section which discusses the corrosive results of modernity's commitment to logos where understanding myth is concerned, and the importance of the novel.
LibraryThing member Rhinoa
A look at mythology over the ages: The Paleaolithic Period, The Neolithic Period, The Early Civilisations, The Axial Age, The Post-Axial Age and The Great Western Transformation. It discusses different myths and how they have been shaped by the times and environment around them. Armstrong takes us
I don't have too much to say about this book sadly. I thought it tried to cover far too much in too small a volume. I thought it would spend more time discussing what myth is and defining it and I also disagreed with some of the statements she made and how some of the myths and timepoints were interpreted. A very average read, maybe more suited to someone just dipping into mythology for the first time.
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up to modern time where science leads the way and discredits many myths.I don't have too much to say about this book sadly. I thought it tried to cover far too much in too small a volume. I thought it would spend more time discussing what myth is and defining it and I also disagreed with some of the statements she made and how some of the myths and timepoints were interpreted. A very average read, maybe more suited to someone just dipping into mythology for the first time.
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LibraryThing member cbobbitt
Armstrong raises many issues associated with the study and understanding of myth from multiple scholarly disciplines: anthropology, literature, theology.
LibraryThing member Farringdon
I have been a fan of Karen Armstrong since I read her books on Mohamed and the history of Islam. Once again she is clear, incisive and informative.
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Karen Armstrong was once a nun then an atheist so it's only reasonable that she became one of the world's greatest commentators on religion. In A Short History of Myth she says that "We need myths to help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to
Lastly she claims that in the modern world based on logos literature has become our way of sustaining and expressing myth and accomplishes the same goals of reconciliation with mortality and the assistance in achieving transcendence.
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experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness." She also says myth was the way humans came to reconcile with our mortality. She says that logos, or the way of looking at life realistically need not be at odds with mythos, rather they are companion views of life. However after the age of reason, religious people often thought they needed to explain their faith in realistic terms, they needed to avow a literal belief in religion, treating religious books not as tellings of necessary myth but as a factual account of reality; and that this negation of reality also lessons the ability of myth to sustain humans.Lastly she claims that in the modern world based on logos literature has become our way of sustaining and expressing myth and accomplishes the same goals of reconciliation with mortality and the assistance in achieving transcendence.
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LibraryThing member wamser
Walk through myth over time is cogently and intelligently presented
LibraryThing member Osorio
This book is a good, short, readable introduction to the study of myth. Armstrong traces human engagement with myth in a chronological fashion, describing the function of myth during the different eras of civilization. But while this history is presented concisely and readably, it ultimately misses
For that, you will have to read Joseph Campbell. Start with The Power of Myth and then move on to The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
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an opportunity to engage the reader with the actual myths and convey their continued relevancy even (perhaps especially) in today's modern, scientific world.For that, you will have to read Joseph Campbell. Start with The Power of Myth and then move on to The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
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LibraryThing member toastron
Now I know I gave it five stars but Karen was my next step up from Joseph Campbell and1990 undergrad world religions. Armstrong is my quick-read primer of world history so the stars really indicate how often I use it as a resource. Now the asinine confession is that the little voice wonders whether
I find I supplement Karen's book with Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond and the 5 to 7 minute speeches write themselves. And that's a -30-
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Karen's history is solid and not the scriptural-literary bendings of Matthew Fox(although he taught me a lot).I find I supplement Karen's book with Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond and the 5 to 7 minute speeches write themselves. And that's a -30-
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LibraryThing member Sandydog1
Nice overview. Towards the end Armstrong discusses mythology in early 20th century art forms including the novel. There are several interesting comments about symbolism in The Heart of Darkness, The Magic Mountain, Under the Volcano, etc..
LibraryThing member JacobsBeloved
For such a short book, I developed quite a strong opinion about the text while reading it. I have been curious about Armstrong's writings for a long time, but this is the first attempt I have made at actually reading anything by her. I have always been a fan of ancient mythology, such as Greek and
In seven chapters, Armstrong takes a simplified stroll through history, focusing on the concept of myth and its impact on civilization. All throughout the book, she attempts to support her claim that a person can believe in myths without believing that the myths are actually true, and that the failure of modern society is by not following her specific edict. While this notion strikes me as absurd, I keep reading because, hey, it's a short book.
While I know only bits and pieces about many of the world's religions, I do know both the history and the holy book of my religion, Christianity. It becomes apparent to me early in the text that she is masking her opinions and interpretations of this religion as actual fact, so I can only imagine how she misconstrues other religions.
Her citations were lacking to me, with many claims going unsupported, others only partially supported, such as citation #84 and #30, and some citations simply not even applying to the specified text, such as citation #87. In citation #55, she claims that the Bible contains a Creation myth in which God brings the world into being by killing a sea monster, but one of the four verses she cites make no reference to anything of the sort (Job 3:12), and the other three (Isaiah 27:1, Job 26:13, Psalm 74:14) that do mention a leviathan cannot be interpreted that way when read in context. Isaiah is describing the end of days, while Job merely says that God created the serpent, and the verse in Psalm is within the context of a song about God rescuing the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery -- no relevancy to Creation. She makes the claim that Paul "was not much interested in Jesus's teachings, which he rarely quotes, or in the events of his earthly life." This claim is easily disproved by examining how Paul's words line up with Jesus's in John 5:21 vs. 1 Corinthians 15:22, Matthew 6:25 vs. Philippians 4:6, and many other passages.
While going through the citations, I got the feeling that the author depended on secondary sources for her information without actually studying the original source of her information. The book struck me as highly opinionated, vague, and too general for the topic being addressed. I have no doubt that there are better and more thorough books available on the topic of myth. I do not believe that I will be reading any more of Armstrong's works in the future.
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Egyptian, so this seemed like an easy choice.In seven chapters, Armstrong takes a simplified stroll through history, focusing on the concept of myth and its impact on civilization. All throughout the book, she attempts to support her claim that a person can believe in myths without believing that the myths are actually true, and that the failure of modern society is by not following her specific edict. While this notion strikes me as absurd, I keep reading because, hey, it's a short book.
While I know only bits and pieces about many of the world's religions, I do know both the history and the holy book of my religion, Christianity. It becomes apparent to me early in the text that she is masking her opinions and interpretations of this religion as actual fact, so I can only imagine how she misconstrues other religions.
Her citations were lacking to me, with many claims going unsupported, others only partially supported, such as citation #84 and #30, and some citations simply not even applying to the specified text, such as citation #87. In citation #55, she claims that the Bible contains a Creation myth in which God brings the world into being by killing a sea monster, but one of the four verses she cites make no reference to anything of the sort (Job 3:12), and the other three (Isaiah 27:1, Job 26:13, Psalm 74:14) that do mention a leviathan cannot be interpreted that way when read in context. Isaiah is describing the end of days, while Job merely says that God created the serpent, and the verse in Psalm is within the context of a song about God rescuing the Hebrews from Egyptian slavery -- no relevancy to Creation. She makes the claim that Paul "was not much interested in Jesus's teachings, which he rarely quotes, or in the events of his earthly life." This claim is easily disproved by examining how Paul's words line up with Jesus's in John 5:21 vs. 1 Corinthians 15:22, Matthew 6:25 vs. Philippians 4:6, and many other passages.
While going through the citations, I got the feeling that the author depended on secondary sources for her information without actually studying the original source of her information. The book struck me as highly opinionated, vague, and too general for the topic being addressed. I have no doubt that there are better and more thorough books available on the topic of myth. I do not believe that I will be reading any more of Armstrong's works in the future.
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LibraryThing member hailelib
A short book that covers mythologies of the world from Early Man to modern times. The author shows a deep understanding of how myths came into being and the importance of its myths to any culture. She also explains why our modern practice of dismissing myths as irrelevant and our insistence on
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reading religious texts like the Bible as literal and historic rather than mythic is misguided and even dangerous. Armstrong has interesting ideas and comes at her subject from a slightly different angle than other authors on this subject. I felt that her book was worth the time I spent with it. Show Less
LibraryThing member MikeFarquhar
Canongate Publishing is one of my favourite independent publishers, committed to publishing unique authors and books. From modest beginnings, they've risen to be a significant force in UK (and beyond) publishing. Their current endeavour is an ambitious one - a retelling of our mythical history for
The first two books in the series - The Penelopiad, with Margaret Atwood retelling the events of The Odyssey from Penelope's point of view; and Jeanette Winterson's Weight, focussing on the stories of Atlas and Heracles - are both excellent. Canongate have a host of well-kent authors lined up to tell future installments in the series - which they are currently projecting to finish sometime around 2038. The books are presented in mini-hardback editions, and can be bought singly or in a slipcase - potentially a good Christmas present.
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the modern age. The series begins with a short pamphlet from Phillip Pullman explaining the concept, followed by a novella length essay by Karen Armstrong entitled A Short History of Myth. Armstrong then takes us through the mythical archetypes, and how our myths changed to reflect the huge changes in human culture and civilisation - notably the discovery of agriculture, and later the development of cities and the growth of secularism. A little too stereotypically academic in some places, she nevertheless makes a compelling argument for the necessity of retelling our myths, and that in modern society writers have taken over that role from the shamans and priests of the past. Her working definition of a myth - an event which in some sense happpened once, but also happens all the time - allows her to explore exactly why these arechetypal tales still have the power to have such an effect on us.The first two books in the series - The Penelopiad, with Margaret Atwood retelling the events of The Odyssey from Penelope's point of view; and Jeanette Winterson's Weight, focussing on the stories of Atlas and Heracles - are both excellent. Canongate have a host of well-kent authors lined up to tell future installments in the series - which they are currently projecting to finish sometime around 2038. The books are presented in mini-hardback editions, and can be bought singly or in a slipcase - potentially a good Christmas present.
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