Karen Armstrong (GBR)

Karen Armstrong FRSL (born 14 November 1944) is a British author and commentator known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College while in the convent and majored in English. She would become disillusioned and leave the convent in 1969. She first rose to prominence in 1993 with her book A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.

Armstrong received the $100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year.

Bibliography

Journal articles:

"Women, Tourism, Politics" (1977)
"The Holiness of Jerusalem: Asset or Burden?" (1998)
"Ambiguity and Remembrance: Individual and Collective Memory in Finland" (2000)

Books:

Through the Narrow Gate (1982)
The First Christian: Saint Paul's Impact on Christianity (1983)
Beginning the World (1983)
Tongues of Fire: An Anthology of Religious and Poetic Experience (1985)
The Gospel According to Woman: Christianity's Creation of the Sex War in the West (1986)
Holy War: The Crusades and their Impact on Today's World (1988)
Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet (1991)
The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (1991)
The End of Silence: Women and the Priesthood (1993)
A History of God (1993)
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996)
In the Beginning: A New Interpretation of Genesis (1996)
Islam: A Short History (2000)
The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (2000)
Buddha (2001)
Faith After 11 September (2002)
The Spiral Staircase (2004)
A Short History of Myth (2005)
Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time (2006)
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006) ISBN 978-0-375-41317-9
The Bible: A Biography (2007)
The Case for God (2009) ISBN 978-0-307-26918-8
Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010) ISBN 978-0-307-59559-1
A Letter to Pakistan ISBN 978-0-19-906330-7

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong