The Great Transformation Group Read

The Science, Religion, and History group has a quarterly group read, and The Great Transformation, by Karen Armstrong is this quarter's choice. Everyone can feel free to join! We will be discussing this book for the next three months (April - June), and will have no schedule for when to start or end discussion. If you're interested in voting on next quarter's book, you can check out our thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/146538 . Nominations will begin in May.

May the reading begin!

I'm going to follow the discussion just in case my copy surfaces.

Robert

Read the Intro today. Interesting already.

Fourpawz2, I'm at the same place as you (just starting) and I think that this book will be right in my interest area, but nudging me around for new insights.

I was glad to note that, although there are endnotes, they are just references, and the endnote numbers are present in the text. Huge bibliography and index, too.

Karen O.

I'm in the middle of chapter 2.

Started last night. I've now finished chapter 1.

Finished it tonight.

I liked it better than The Bible : a biography, but that is not saying much. Could just be that i know less about the subject.

Wow, MarthaJeanne, you are fast! I've just finished Chapter 4 and am thinking I need to start making some summary notes. Thanks to my college courses in Eastern Philosophy, most of the concepts are not new to me, but the history is fascinating.

I haven't even started yet. But I'm pretty interested in the topic, so I hope I can get to it sooner rather than later.

I picked up the book at the library yesterday...

I'm maybe a third of the way through. Maybe I don't read enough history books -- I'm still waiting for a thesis. Is that perhaps a vain hope?

I think she has one, but I'm not sure it is ever clearly stated.

I'm done with The Great Transformation now. My impressions follow (without spoilers, if spoilers can even be had for this sort of book -- but with a strong reaction).

===

I disliked it. Armstrong writes using picked-and-chosen historical evidence, applying out-of-context terms to "prove" the similarity of themes, and with specious hidden linguistic presuppositions to argue for the universality of politically correct humanism. Just, ick. It's not even logically fallacious -- it's logically non-existent. However, because it says what people want to hear (all religions are useful, your tradition is correct, your forefathers had access to some sort of universal truth), it appeals. The amount of "there" there is actually negative. Again: just, ick.

Maybe I was expecting something this book just didn't want to give.

My full review is here.

Well, I'm also done with the book. I didn't finish the book, but I'm done reading. I made it to nearly the half-way point before quitting.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I understood her words, I understood her sentences. But I didn't understand her. The lack of a clearly stated thesis, as mentioned above, was a big problem as I didn't know what to pay attention to. I think she was comparing the 4 traditions to one another, rather than contrasting them, but I missed the essential elements that ties them together. I also missed the similarities of their progression into modern times - if that is what she was trying to prove.

I thought the topic as I understood it - all religious traditions have followed the same path of development and for the same reasons and to the same end, despite their seeming to be quite different - was interesting and I was looking forward to seeing her present and explain the evidence. Perhaps she has done that and it was simply over my head. However, I consider myself to be reasonably intelligent, and am a frequent reader of popular science and history. In addition to a printed copy of the book, I also had an audio version read by the author. If I were sitting in a university lecture hall listening to her speak on this topic, by the end of the period I would be nodding off over a blank notebook - having been unable to discern the important points needing to be noted.

I'm disappointed, both in myself and in the author. This book does not work for me at this time.