Rating: 
Summary: Infuriatingly ignorant!
Review: Thomas Cahill's thesis, that the tradition of classical civilization would have been lost if not for some isolated Irish monks, is simply false. Constantinople, which had been the capital of the Roman Empire since A.D. 330, remained the center of that culture until its capture by illiterate marauders of the fourth "Crusade" in A.D. 1204; that fiasco ended in A.D. 1261, and the cultured Byzantines perdured until their final conquest by the Turks in A.D. 1453. If Ireland had never existed, the Greek language of the Church and the writings of the pagan writers would all have survived in Constantinople. In fact, the Latins' _real_ role in this story is that their looting in the years between 1204 and 1261 resulted in the destruction of the world's finest libraries and manuscript collections of ancient works, and then to the fatal weakening of the Roman (which the illiterates in Rome after the pope's corronation of a German impostor emperor in A.D. 800 called "Byzantine") Empire. Today, the Louvre, the Vatican, St. Mark's in Venice, the British Museum, and all of the major cathedrals and museums in Western Europe are full of relics and religious artwork stolen by these "crusaders." It is truly a perpetual blasphemy for the body of St. Nicholas to be in Bari or the relics of St. John Chrysostom to be in the Vatican, since they were thieved by marauding Roman Catholics from the Orthodox Christians to whose communities they rightly belonged (in body and in spirit). What cheek, then, for Cahill to credit Roman Catholicism with the survival of ancient civilization! Next he'll credit Islam for the survival of the Greek language!There are several other idiotic aspects of this book. Its writing is awful, its tone is awful, its presentist self-esteem is intolerable. This book is pollution, a waste of trees, a truly ignorant work obviously calculated simply to appeal to the large book-buying population of descendants of Irish in America (of whom I am one). If you want to know something about medieval Europe, don't start here.
Rating: 
Summary: Readable, clear and illuminating
Review: Cahill uses a relaxed and readable style to picture this fracture point of history. His voice is personal and open, so you're free to accept or reject his personal attitudes which are in plain sight, rather than hidden in some musty scholarly construct. A bright, enjoyable and enlightening work.
Rating: 
Summary: A rare send-back
Review: Cahill has exaggerated an historical sidelight (and not a unique one, i.e., a culture with a bibliographic tradition that survived the relative chaos after the fall of Rome) into an overblown rumination on illuminated manuscripts and monks. Plodding and dull, with few surprises for the literate. A disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Assumes!
Review: Very good history, but the analysis presents a fictitious schismatic Celtic Church and beats the heck out of great thinker and saint, St. Augustine. Cahill brings his disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church to 5th century Ireland.
Rating:
Summary: Historically Inaccurate and Very Misleading
Review: It's premise and it's title are false. It grossly overstates the disorder on the Continent at the time and grossly overstates the accomplishments of the Irish monks. One of the most rubbishy history books I've ever come across.
Rating:
Summary: Were all history texts like this, we'd not fear the future
Review: Gentle reader, put on the kettle and warm the teapot. Fine time tha' wit and heart were warmed as well/ by the truth that within our blood does dwell/ a thirst for knowledge canst no' be quenched/ by oppressor's rod nor religion's fence;/ answers the somber beckonings/ of a lost soul's wayward reckonings/ at last laid bare in this tome of time,/ poor homage paid it by this cuff-link rhyme!
Rating: 
Summary: fun and interesting
Review: This book really gave me a feel for WHY the Irish of the time saved so much of western literature when the rest of Europe lost it. Showing the different world views and the behaviors that came from them was what I found most interesting. The book is an easy read while having something to say.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, witty and very serious!
Review: One of the best books I have read in a long long time. It is funny and witty, a fast read.... Can't put it down! and it is serious and historically correct. It describes a forgotten corner of history that is the cornerstone of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Long live the Irish, and a pity the catholic church did not learn more from them! The world might have been a better place!
Rating:
Summary: Anyone going to Ireland soon,will get their excitement going
Review: What a excellent book! After each chapter I read, I read it again! I am going to Ireland this summer and I'm so excited!! The people and ideologies are fascinating! It's such an enlighting piece on the Irish that makes it fun for anyone looking to discover who the Irish are, and why we CELEBRATE ST. PATRICK's the way we do!!
Rating:
Summary: Too good for these eyes to read deservingly!!
Review: This book is a great book for any who is Irish (and Catholic) to know a little about their history. The style is somewhat dry at spots, but it picks up quickly.
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