KAREN ARMSTRONG is the author of numerous books, including The Case for God, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, and Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence. Her work has been translated into over fifty languages. She has addressed the U.S. Congress on three occasions, the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and New York, and is an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In 2007, Dr. Armstrong received a medal from the Egyptian government for her services to Islam, the first foreigner to have been awarded this decoration. Other awards include the Four Freedoms Medal for Freedom of Worship by the Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Gandhi/King/Ikeda Prize for Community Builders, and the British Academy Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize. She is a Trustee of the British Museum and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Literature. She was awarded the TED Prize in 2008 for her vision of a Charter for Compassion (www.charterforcompassion.org) which was crafted by leading thinkers in six of the world’s religions as a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the centre of moral and political life. The Charter for Compassion is now being implemented practically and creatively in countries, cities, schools and businesses throughout the world.