Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book on Cassette
Review: Clark Kent saves the world as Superman but Clark gets none of the recognition. The Irish save Western Civilization but their role has been forgotten. Thomas Cahill argues that many historians fail to give full weight to the Irish for their contribution in world history. This is because the greatest contribution of the Irish came in what Cahill calls the hinges or transitions of history. According to the author the Irish Celts and Catholics made a contribution that European civilization depended on. The book is a brief study of Europe's transition from the Roman to the medieval age, and the role of the Irish in this hinge point. His thesis contends that without the monks and scribes of Ireland, this critical transition would have been impossible. Cahill convincingly demonstrates, through fascinating historical narrative, that the Irish contribution has significantly shaped the history of the world. The author begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and its ramifications. He then goes back to investigate the early history of Ireland through the transforming work of St. Patrick. Next, he looks at the Irish priests, monks, scribes, and missionaries who build on the foundation of Patrick to lay their own foundation for future generations. Finally, he shows how these holy men and women's contributions provided the avenue for western civilization to develop. Cahill concludes by giving the reader his own interpretation of lessons to be learned for the day in which we find ourselves. Along the way, we meet many interesting characters, hear numerous tales of various sorts, and gain insight into western history and western civilization. Thomas Cahill has contributed a valuable link to the world of St. Patrick and the Irish. He writes with an intriguing, exciting, and captivating style. The listener must leave behind any notions of history being boring. Often he slips into the historical event being reported in order to demonstrate through his characters what it would have been like to be a part of the event. Cahill presents history in an intriguing and playful way. A general knowledge of history and western civilization would be helpful, but the book is designed to appeal to a wide audience. The sexual references and imagery could be offensive to some reader sensibilities. I both read the book and listened to the cassettes. The narration with the Irish accent of Liam Neeson made a great book even better. Excellent book on cassette!
Rating:
Summary: Audio Version Easier To Handle
Review: "How The Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill, as narrated by Donal Donnelly. 6 Audio Cassettes, Recorded Books, 1996.
I had been given the book which I read on a long flight. But, I borrowed the audio tapes for the long drive on I495, especially for the slow down at the Mass Pike. Reading the book by Thomas Cahill left me somewhat dissatisfied, as Dr. Cahill's central thesis appeared disjointed and, he went on so long in making his point: that the Irish had indeed saved the writings of St. Augustine, Plato, etc., CIVILIZATION!, and copied them over and re-distributed all these works throughout Europe just at the right moment! I was surprised, however, and this is the main purpose of this review, that listening to the book really makes Dr. Cahill's point far better than reading the book! Donal Donnelly, with just the right touch of an Irish accent, reads each chapter and builds on Plato and St. Augustine, and so on, until Cahill's main concept dawns on you and you say, as you listen to the last cassette, "Right, I see that without the Irish monks and their copying, we would have had to start over again at ground zero". Perhaps the noted author and sociologist, Fr. Andrew Greeley is correct when he describes the Irish as an "oral people", who still depend more on the spoken rather than the written word. There are some drawbacks, as Mr. Donnelly struggles with the pronunciation of the French towns and monasteries begun by the Irish, and he really mutilates the Austrian name, "Salzburg". I found the chapter on St. Patrick and his conversion of Ireland to be more moving if I read it to myself, rather than listening to the audio tape reading by Donnelly. I recommend that you listen to the audio tapes after you've read the book. And, finally, it is well worth the repetition: Europe consists of more cultural backgrounds than just the Latin/Germanic mainstreams. This book deals with the neglected Celtic/Irish stream, and deserves your attention.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Interesting
Review: This was really one of the most uniquely interesting books on the subject of the transition of Europe from the Age of Rome to the Dark Ages I have come across. The uniqueness comes from the fact that this is by no means an average history book, but rather a collection of all sorts of humanities studies combined to bring a historical understanding that pure history cannot truly provide.
As a result, historical facts, dates, names etc. are lacking in the book, but the emphasis placed on contrasting literatures of the period give a different source of looking at the time that are very interesting and effective. Most notable is Cahill's inclusion of Irish literature that is rarely seen in normal European literature studies.
I cannot complement enough the discussion of the Irish themselves, both before and after St. Patrick, for Cahill's look at them is one of the most objective but humanly comprehending I have ever seen. The true seeds of Ireland are presented and made understandable to any level of reader in this book, and that may be its greatest achievement.
For anyone who wants to come to understand the human side of the beginning of the dark ages would be wise to give this book a look, and I assure that will be little disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Go Irish!!!
Review: If "funnest" were a real word, I most assuredly would chose to use it now, in description of this exceptional book. Author/historian Cahill does a fantastic job of touching upon several hundred years of history, in just over 200 pages. A tight fit, yes, but that's ok, he isn't trying to illuminate every nook and cranny of the past, but give us a clear and reasonable look at certain pieces, snapshots if you will, of his subject:the slow fall of the jaded Roman Empire (which opened the floodgates to an intellectual hell which very nearly consumed the West), all the way forward to the actions of one of history's most unlikely group of heroes; lusty Irish warriors turned holy men and women, giving us back the gift of knowledge. Heartily recommended!
Rating:
Summary: A focused book, sticking to the thesis
Review: Cahill could have used his pages to write on the intricacies of Celtic history, language and culture. But he doesn't. He writes generically of these subjects. The thesis of the book is that the Irish Christians (i.e. monks/scholars/scribes) of the Middle Ages preserved the halmark of Western Civilization; that is literature. The book stayed focused on this point. Anyone expecting something else should bypass this book. However, it is an interesting, and most convincing, argument made (and he isn't the first or last to argue this) that the Irish did indeed save civilization as we know it, whether they did so intentionally or not. The book explains the situation the west was in during the paradox of the Medievil Period. Rome was caving in from the inside out. The Barbarians were knocking on the doors of the capital, and what would happen soon thereafter would be the destruction of rule, law, order, and knowledge. Cahill then briefly discusses how Ireland came to Christianity. Irish monks/scribes preserved documents of the Bible, classical literature, and language, thus saving civilization. What was useful in this book was how the connections were made. Cahill did spend a fair amount of time researching the topic, admittedly not exhaustively, and provides an excellent introduction to Ireland and its important role in history. It wets the appetite of the dabbler. For those already well versed in the history of Ireland, history of the Church in the west, and Celtic civilization, much of the book will be review material, and at the very least, an interesting read. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to have a better understanding of history.
Rating: 
Summary: Mirth or Myth?
Review: The title makes this a very impressive book to leave on your coffee table, or to hold while waiting in a doctor's office. The point is, like so much of Irish prose, don't take it so seriously. Most other reviews here go into every little error and exaggeration. I guess all that is important to scholars, but to me, It is more interesting how St. Patrick was able to USE the best of Celtic paganism, mix equally with the Christian concept of 'Heaven,' and come up with such an unique belief structure. The work of Irish monks in preserving much of Latin writings is a given, and that includes much about the Christian religion. But, then the Spanish believe it was Spaniards (with very little fact) that buried John the Baptist and saved Christianity all by themselves. And it was the Muslim Babylons that we must thank for our most ancient history, for their preservation of Greek writings, and amazing advances in the sciences. So? Read this as a wonderful Irish yarn, of which there are many; and not as a textbook of the Green Isle. TRINITY, a novel by Leon Uris, though covering only 50 years of Irish history, gives a reader a much better insight into the problems, past and current, built into every Irish soul. HOW THE IRISH.... tells of the religion that has helped the Irish endure their history. Read this paperback without the red pencil, without the highlighter, but just for what it is. Then leave your copy out to start great convercations over a good bottle of wine.
Rating: 
Summary: The story remains untold!
Review: This book is a nice little tale about early Ireland and the Europe of the late Roman / Early Middle Ages. We get to know lots about Irish mythology, heroic tales, sexual attitudes etc. Also this book overflows with Latin quotations and the such. What is missing is the story promissed in the title: how the Irish saved civilisation. It tells us how the Irish got letters and Christianity, practising both with the zeal of the newly-converted. The story of the Irish missionarys on the continent gets a glance at best, as a background to the tale of some very colorful Irish madmen (? / saints?). The tale the author promises in the title could be there, even if it remains doubtful if the Irish monks could be credided with saving (Christian) civilisation. What about Cyrill and Method? And even Cahill acknoledges that there were missionarys from other parts of the (western, Latin) Christian world as well. Unfortunately he won't discuss it in this book. Less Irish tales would have been helpful. This way the book remains faithful to its subtitle: The Untold Story ... . It remains untold.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointing Introduction to Medieval Ireland
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Limited view of Irish Culture
Review: While this book does provide some insight into the contributions of the Irish people to later European culture, I found it so lacking in information on the actual, traditional culture of Ireland that a better title for it would be "How Christianity saved Ireland". The Celtic people who formed the dominant culture of Ireland for centuries before the island's conversion to christianity had one of the most developed legal systems and literary heritages (well, it was mostly oral tradition, but the cultural impact is comprable) of the time-- most certainly one of the most impressive cultures outside of the Mediterranean empires. This history is largely ignored by the author, and the reader is led to believe that the history of Ireland's contributions to civilization began when Christian missionaries civilized and educated the barbarous Celts, teaching them how to write for the sole purpose of preserving Christian myths through the Dark Ages. The author's breezy style and lack of citations cause me to question the amount of actual research he put into this book; it reads like a 12th grader's term paper in a Catholic school history class. I am not particularly inclined to read any of his other works, though, if his treatment of the "marginal cultures" whose contributions to civilization he intends to chronicle remains at the same level throughout the rest of this series, I'm sure I will hear a certain amount of uproar coming from members of the other cultural groups Cahill has chosen to patronize.
Rating:
Summary: Anything less would be uncivilized
Review: The title of this book is misleading, though not inaccurate. For some reason I assumed the title to be tongue-in-cheek. Some vague kind of Irish humor. I also assumed that the Irish in question were the contemporary Irish, perhaps even Irish Americans. I was pleasantly surprised to be completely wrong. I usually listen to tapes of books that I am mildly interested in and don't want to spend the time and effort to read. This one far exceeded my initial casual interest. It was a joy to listen to and worth sitting down with in print form. The book is a piece of serious history. It focuses on the transition in Europe between the fall of Rome and the early Middle Ages. The story is literally how Irish clerics saved the books and teachings of classical Western civilization, then re-introduced them to Europe after the fall. This is not only a period in history that I am not especially familiar with - I genuinely don't think there's much writing on it (at least not popular historical writing, like this book). The author makes a point that this particular story - of how, well, the Irish saved civilization, is especially downplayed or ignored in part due to who writes most of the history books (such as the English). So I learned quite a bit. Cahill is a great storyteller. I imagine that this will be enjoyable even for people without a particular attraction to history, and certainly to people with no particular interest in Irish history. Again, this is a book worth getting and reading in print form, however the audio version has one advantage - the narration by Donal Donnelly. His rich voice and well-timed delivery was a joy to listen to and kept me driving the long way home so I could hear more of the tape.
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