Karen Armstrong was a Roman Catholic nun for seven years. Since 1982 she has been a historian of religion, a freelance writer, and a broadcaster. She has published numerous books and has appeared often on television due to her expertise in the history of religions. (For her books I’ve read, click on her name.)

The publisher’s words are of interest: “Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives – they explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way.” This book by Karen Armstrong is one of ten in The Myths series. But, as I’ve learned from several of her books that I’ve read and reviewed, she is exceptionally thorough, so the ‘short history’ in this book covers, in seven chapters, myths from the Paleolithic period to the present time, thus she discusses very many myths and describes concisely the many changes over time of many myths as well as changes in the world’s major religions.

The span of her history is easily seen in the titles of the seven chapters: Ch 1 is What Is a Myth? Ch 2 is The Paleolithic Period: The Mythology of the Hunters (c. 20000 to 8000 BCE). Ch 3 is The Neolithic Period: The Mythology of the Farmers (c. 8000 to 4000 BCE). Ch 4 is The Early Civilizations (c. 4000 to 600 BCE). Ch 5 is The Axial Age (c. 800 to 200 BCE). Ch 6 is The Post-Axial Age (c. 200 BCE to c. 1500 CE). Ch 7 is The Great Western Transformations (c. 1500 to 2000 CE). I provide in the following selected quotes of some of the main ideas she presents about myths.

From Ch 1: “Human beings have always been mythmakers.” …”… from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value. Another peculiar characteristic of the human mind is its ability to have ideas and experiences that we cannot explain rationally. We have imagination, a faculty that enables us to think of something that is not immediately present, and that, when we first conceive it, has no objective existence. The imagination is also the faculty that produces religion and mythology.” …”But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective.” …”Mythology and science both extend the scope of human beings. Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.” …”Myth is about the unknown; it is about that for which we have no words. Myth therefore looks into the heart of a great silence.” …”Finally, all mythology speaks of another plane that exists alongside our own world, and that in some sense supports it. Belief in this invisible but more powerful reality, sometimes called the world of the gods, is a basic theme of mythology.” …”Like a novel, an opera or a ballet, myth is make-believe; it is a game that transfigures our fragmented, tragic world, and helps us to glimpse new possibilities by asking ‘what if?’ – a question which has also provoked some of our most important discoveries in philosophy, science and technology.” …”A myth, therefore, is true because it is effective, not because it gives us factual information.” …”A myth is essentially a guide; it tells us what we must do in order to live more richly.” …”There is never a single, orthodox version of a myth. As our circumstances change, we need to tell our stories differently in order to bring out their timeless truth.”

I quoted extensively above from Ch 1 because too many people don’t know what a myth is – today the word ‘myth’ is often used to describe something that is not true. Ch 1 and the quotes above from it should show them how they are going astray about myths. In the remaining chapters Karen Armstrong shows how the myths used by people in their respective time periods either mature or fade away, as the human mind and its society and cultures develop. For myths evolve to fit the human circumstances in their part of the world. Myths as human societies evolve from hunter-gather to farmer to urban life are covered well in Ch 2-4.

In Ch 5 the Axial Age is singled out because of its importance: “It marks the beginning of religion as we know it.” …”New religions and philosophical systems emerged: Confucianism and Taoism in China, Buddhism and Hinduism in India, monotheism in the Middle East, and Greek rationalism in Europe.” We don’t know why it emerged only in these places in the same time period, but “All the Axial movements had essential ingredients in common. They were acutely conscious of the suffering that seemed an inescapable part of the human condition, and all stressed the need for a more spiritualized religion that was not so heavily dependent upon external rituals and practice.” …”All the sages recoiled from the violence of their time, and preached an ethic of compassion and justice. They taught their disciples to look within themselves for truth and not to rely on the teachings of priests and other religious experts.” For more on this topic see her book The Great Transformation: the Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (book 225, which I read in Oct ’07). Ch 6 and 7 continue to describe the many changes in the above religions but, as to be expected in a book about myths, focus more on how their myths changed with time, often not for the better. Speaking of the recent past, she feels that “We may be more sophisticated in material ways, but we have not advanced spiritually beyond the Axial Age: because of our suppression of ‘mythos’ we may even have regressed.” …”We must disabuse ourselves of the nineteenth-century fallacy that myth is false or that it represents an inferior mode of thought.” …”We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to out ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths to help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a ‘resource’. This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet.”

In Ch 7, after discussing artists and ‘creative’ writers, she ends Ch 7 with “If professional religious leaders cannot instruct us in mythical lore, our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged world.” I am not as pessimistic as Karen Armstrong seems to be from this ending, for there are writers of religion, and of the compatibility of religion and science, who are aiming high - at a new, emerging, progressive interpretation of traditional religions. In rating this book, my only critique is that it is too short - without as much depth as I would have liked, although her conciseness and brevity may well appeal to others who wish to learn, or to better understand, how important myths are to us, to our religions, and to the progression of our spiritual journeys.