A Short History of Myth - Karen Armstrong

Category: History
Language: EnglishKeywords: History Man Sociology

Written by Karen Armstrong
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

From Booklist
In this essay, superpopular religion historian Armstrong (Islam: A Short History, 2000) fastens the attributes of myth to the major chronological categories of human history. At each transition from the Paleolithic to scientific eras, she argues that a mythical conception of natural forces has drifted ever further from interpretation in pragmatic and logical terms, such that myth in modern times is a beleaguered species of fiction. To Armstrong this state reflects a profound misunderstanding of what myth is and does. Defining it as an art form that, on the assumption of the existence of an invisible realm of reality, protects one against the despair arising from the limitations of the tactile world (death in particular), Armstrong relates how mythology has historically been reformulated. She traces a theogony, illustrating it with examples from Chinese, Middle Eastern, Egyptian, and Greek cultures, as sky worship phased into anthropomorphic gods and then into ethical systems such as those of Confucius or Jesus. Written with great explanatory clarity, Armstrong’s review of mythology is an efficient, fascinating experience.