Review | How the Irish saved civilization by Thomas Chaill

How the Irish saved civilization 

Rating : 4/5

Author : Thomas Cahill

Genre : non Fiction

About Author 

THOMAS CAHILL is the author of the best-selling books,  How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe,  The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels,  Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus,  Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter,  Mysteries of the Middle Ages: And the Beginning of the Modern World, and, most recently,  Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World. These six books comprise Volumes I, II, III, IV, V, and VI, respectively, of the Hinges of History, a prospective seven-volume series in which the author recounts formative moments in Western civilization. In "The Hinges of History," Thomas Cahill endeavors to retell the story of the Western World through little-known stories of the great gift-givers, people who contributed immensely to Western, culture and the evolution of Western sensibility, thus revealing how we have become the people we are and why we think and feel the way we do today. 

Thomas Cahill is best known, in his books and lectures, for taking on a broad scope of complex history and distilling it into accessible, instructive, and entertaining narrative. His lively, engaging writing animates cultures that existed up to five millennia ago, revealing the lives of his principal characters with refreshing insight and joy. He writes history, not in its usual terms of war and catastrophe, but as "narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance." Unlike all too many history lessons, a Thomas Cahill history book or speech is impossible to forget. 

He has taught at Queens College, Fordham University and Seton Hall University, served as the North American education correspondent for the Times of London, and was for many years a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Prior to retiring recently to write full-time, he was director of religious publishing at Doubleday for six years. He and his wife, Susan, also an author, founded the now legendary Cahill & Company, whose reader’s catalogue was much beloved in literary households throughout the country. They divide their time between New York, Rome and Paris.

Book Description

The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. 

Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars" -- and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. 

In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. 

As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. 

In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.

Review

Everyone should read this book! In the depths of the dark ages, 400 years after the fall of Rome, the only place in the world where the art of illuminated scripture was still being practiced was in the monasteries of Ireland: a place so remote and primitive that they were barely aware that they were no longer part of the Roman Empire. The clergy of Europe had become as illiterate as the peasants, but they memorized and recited tthe Bible from memory. Errors conpunded themselves as recondite knowledge was passed orally from generation to generation among the priests. The Irish monks, led by a man named Patrick,were the last literate Northern Europeans. They began traveling through Europe and teaching the clergy how to read. Absent their efforts, civilization as we know it would have passed out of existence: there would have been no Charlemagne to consolidate Europe again, no Elizabeth to sponsor the Reformed Church and the arts, and no Queen Isabella to finance the discovery of the Americas, because they would have all existed (if at all) barely above the level of cavemen. It is for this reason that Patrick was sainted: the stories of ridding Ireland of snakes is just a fairy tale made up by those who didn't read and didn't know why he was sainted. Skip this book, and your life will be poorer in its ignorance!

Cahill writes beautifully, and he brings the book to life: he presents history as saga, and the truth he gives us is more enjoyable . 

It consist of 4 chapters each chapter 

Consist of this points :

Chapter 1: Explanation of the Fall of Rome; Uses interesting ideas for modern political reference which are strangely prophetic in TrumpAmerica

Chapter 2: Breaks down Augustine and talks about the art of his skillful Latin in the context of other writers and philosophers of the age; Cahill states that Confessions is the first autobiographical memoir of all of history opening up the world to psychology and the notion of consciousness; Also talks about Paul’s letters as well as Cicero, Plato and Virgil in a readable, not overly academic manner

Chapter 3: Various poetry and ballads from Irish literature comparing to other cultures such as the Greeks and highlighting traits that are make the Irish unique

Chapter 4: Beautiful insight and enlightening Biography about St. Patrick. He is the adopted father to the Irish people. Gets rid of slavery. Establishes the church and monasteries which is the founding of Christianity in Ireland. Cahill also makes an interesting comparison between St. Patrick’s Confessions and perspective and St. Augustine. Early church fathers who had a great influence on the growth of Christianity.

I greatly enjoyed that book and it inspired me to read and study other representations of that period and seek out more sources. Thomas Cahill writes in a lively and witty style and I think he rather looks admiringly upon the vitality and sensuality of the Irish/Celtic life of way, art and poetry.