How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History) |
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How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History)
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by Thomas Cahill
Sales Rank: 6355
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Discount: 20 %
List Price: $14.00
$11.20
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on 4-18-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 256 pages
Published by: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books Ed edition February 1, 1996
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0385418493
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0385418492
Book Dimensions:
7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
Weighs: 8 ounces
Product Review
In this delightful and illuminating look into a crucial but little-known "hinge" of history, Thomas Cahill takes us to the "island of saints and scholars," the Ireland of St. Patrick and the Book of Kells. Here, far from the barbarian despoliation of the continent, monks and scribes laboriously, lovingly, even playfully preserved the West's written treasury. When stability returned in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning, becoming not only the conservators of civilization, but also the shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on Western culture.
From Publishers Weekly
An account of the pivotal role played by Irish monks in transcribing and preserving Classical civilization during the Dark Ages.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
I read this book while preparing to make my first visit to Ireland. I came to it with reservations -- the title combines overstated braggadocio with shrewd Madison Avenue marketing in a way that I found off-putting. Still, the book had received some very good reviews in reputable newspapers and sold like hotcakes, so I figured, how bad could it possibly be? Pretty bad, actually. After I was about fifty pages into it, I kept thinking of Dorothy Parker's celebrated denunciation of a similarly inadequate volume as a book "that is not to be tossed aside lightly -- it should be thrown with great force." My most fundamental complaint about Cahill is that although he pretends (aspires?) to be writing history, he is in no sense a historian. He has neither the depth of knowledge, the painstaking commitment to factual accuracy, or the self-restraint that a real commitment to history requires. Cahill's book is full of sloppiness, imprecision, and outright historical errors. He refers to Hannibal as a "Phoenician King" when he was neither -- I can imagine Hannibal saying "In my dreams, Tom" to that bit of blithe sloppiness. He makes at least two references to "the death of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476" -- but the last Western Roman Emperor didn't die in 476, bur rather abdicated and survived in comfortable retirement at a villa on the Campanian coast for at least another thirty years. He places Agamemnon in the Greek Iron Age, rather than the Bronze. He uses the exact same quote from Kenneth Clark about Skellig Michael in two different places -- and Clark's assertion isn't even factually accurate. He claims that Patrick was the first real missionary since St. Paul, but that statement is likewise debatable in a way that a real historian would have acknowledged. First, it is far from clear that Patrick was sent out as a missionary, rather than as an administrator assigned the task of bringing order to existing Christian communities in Ireland. Second, there is some evidence of substantial missionary efforts a century before Patrick, when Ulfilas was dispatched to the land of the Goths (admittedly in part for the purpose of ministering to existing Christian communities there, just as Patrick apparently was) and Frumentius was dispatched to India, only to find himself shipwrecked in route on the Red Sea, which prompted him to redirect his missionary efforts to the Ethiopians. [In fairness to Cahill, he does acknowledge in his essay on sources at the back of the book that Ulfilas may present problems for his claims.] Near the end of the book, he acknowledges that his claim that the Irish saved civilization really boils down to the claim that they were responsible for preserving Latin literature during the first centuries of the Dark Ages, while it is to Byzantium that we owe the preservation of Greek learning. Even with regard to Latin literature, however, Cahill offers few specifics. Thus, from what Cahill gives us, it's impossible to know whether we really owe Terence and Tacitus to the Irish, or whether those works independently survived in Rome and at Monte Cassino, among other places. The book is also irritatingly pompous and pretentious. Even leaving aside the lengthy quotations in Latin that pad out the text, Cahill is greatly enamoured of using foreign words -- thus, Ausonius's poetry is described as "full of pia verba," and later we are treated in the space of five pages to references to "the deracine Ausonius," the "recherche" character of Manichaeanism, and the "African sturm und drang" of Augustine's mother Monica. And at one point I thought I would scream if he used the word "ecumene" (more usually rendered by scholars as "oikumene") again. References to "dear Ausonius" and "dear reader" likewise grate, and it's hard not to groan when Cahill tells you that the face of the dying Gaul in the famous Hellenistic statute "casts a cold eye on life, on death" -- or when he suggests that Edward Gibbon "huffs and puffs a great deal." Et tu, Tom? What you can say for this book is that Cahill gives you enough Irish poetry and folklore that you may be left wishing for more, and it may perhaps inspire you to continue your exploration of Irish culture in more depth. [One place that exploration might profitably lead you is to the volume by Cahill's wife Susan entitled "For the Love of Ireland: A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers."] The book does have its moments of charm, especially in the second half of it. But it owes its bestseller status to the shrewd marketing of its title, to its slender length (as with "Love Story" and "The Bridges of Madison County," this is a book you could read in a day), and to the breezy style that may hide its inadequacies from those who know less history than its author does.
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