Karen Armstrong, Con't

Mark, in his post this evening (here), calls Karen Armstrong's most recent book "a hopeless mish-mosh ..."  Maybe so.  But for another view, here's what the reviewer had to say last spring in the New York Times Book Review (here):

Moving back and forth from one culture to another, Ms. Armstrong, the author of "A History of God" and histories of Buddhism and Islam, provides a lucid, highly readable account of complex developments occurring over many centuries. For the general reader "The Great Transformation" is an ideal starting point for understanding how the crowded heaven of warring gods, worshiped in violent rites, lost its grip on the human imagination, which increasingly looked inward rather than upward for enlightenment and transcendence.

In his final paragraph, the reviewer writes that Armstrong's volume is "a splendid book".

Now, I didn't set out to defend Karen Armstrong.  I'm not competent to do that.  In any event, I'm not interested in Karen Armstrong.  I am interested in what she has to say in her comment on Benedict on Islam.   Just as I am interested in what many others have to say--Juan Cole, Robert Miller, Martin Marty, not to mention several MOJ-bloggers--about Benedict on Islam.  I don't think Mark is suggesting that we shouldn't be interested in what Karen Armstrong has to say--even if, after hearing it, we disagree with it, or think it incomplete.  After all, she has doubtless forgotten more about Islam--and about Christianity's relation to Islam--than most of us will ever know.  Her books include:  Muhammad:  A Biography of the Prophet (1993); Holy War:  The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World (2001); Islam:  A Short History (2002).