Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction books in order

Q: "How many books are in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series?"

"There are 22 books in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series, published between 1983 and 2022."

Q: "What is the first book in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series?"

"The first book in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series is Beginning the World, published in 1983."

Q: "What is A History of God about?"

"A History of God (1993) traces the idea of God from its earliest roots in ancient polytheism through the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam up to the twentieth century. It covers mysticism, theology, and philosophy across four thousand years and sold hundreds of thousands of copies."

Reading order

#	Title	Published	Author	Buy on Amazon
1	Beginning the World	1983	Karen Armstrong	Buy
2	The First Christian	1983	Karen Armstrong	Buy
3	The Gospel According to Woman	1986	Karen Armstrong	Buy
4	Holy War	1988	Karen Armstrong	Buy
5	The English Mystics of the Fourteenth Century	1991	Karen Armstrong	Buy
6	The End of Silence	1993	Karen Armstrong	Buy
7	A History of God	1993	Karen Armstrong	Buy
8	Visions of God	1994	Karen Armstrong	Buy
9	Jerusalem	1996	Karen Armstrong	Buy
10	In the Beginning	1996	Karen Armstrong	Buy
11	Shifting Ground and Cultural Bodies	1999	Karen Armstrong	Buy
12	The Battle for God	2000	Karen Armstrong	Buy
13	Faith After 11 September	2002	Karen Armstrong	N/A
14	The Great Transformation	2006	Karen Armstrong	Buy
15	The Case for God	2009	Karen Armstrong	Buy
16	The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to The Hebrews	2010	Karen Armstrong	Buy
17	Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life	2010	Karen Armstrong	Buy
18	A Letter To Pakistan	2011	Karen Armstrong	Buy
19	Fields of Blood	2014	Karen Armstrong	Buy
20	The Lost Art of Scripture	2019	Karen Armstrong	Buy
21	Sacred Nature	2022	Karen Armstrong	Buy
22	The Story Of God	2022	Karen Armstrong	Buy

Armstrong’s nonfiction output is substantial — twenty-two books covering everything from the English mystics of the fourteenth century to the violence encoded in religious traditions worldwide. Her major works include Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths (1996), The Battle for God (2000), which examines the rise of fundamentalism across Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and The Great Transformation (2006), about the Axial Age when the world’s great philosophical traditions emerged simultaneously.

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010) is a more personal book, drawing on the structure of addiction recovery to outline a program for developing genuine compassion. The Lost Art of Scripture (2019) argues that modern literalism has stripped religious texts of their original purpose as instruments of transformation rather than sources of factual information. Together, her nonfiction amounts to one of the most sustained popular engagements with religion in contemporary publishing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books are in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series?

There are 22 books in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series, published between 1983 and 2022.

What is the first book in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series?

The first book in the Karen Armstrong Non-Fiction series is Beginning the World, published in 1983.

What is A History of God about?

A History of God (1993) traces the idea of God from its earliest roots in ancient polytheism through the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam up to the twentieth century. It covers mysticism, theology, and philosophy across four thousand years and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Reading order#

Frequently Asked Questions

Reading order