In 1982, he graduated from the history Department of the Moscow State Pedagogical University.

For about 5 years, he worked as a high school history and obshestvovedeny teacher.

In 1987, he got a job as an editor at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house.

During his life, Karpov wrote more than 100 historical works; biographies of the rulers of Kievan Rus' became very popular.

He became famous for historical biographies of the rulers of ancient Ukraine, primarily the "Orthodox trilogy", which includes books about Princess Olga, Yaroslav the Wise and Vladimir the Great.