How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Sep 28, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2012-around-the-world, non-fiction, history, ultimate-reading-list, religion

I do get why this book on "How the Irish Saved Civilization" was a bestseller. Not only is it the perfect gift for St Patrick's Day, it is entertaining and readable. But I also found it superficial and not reliable. It may be the contrast with some really fine histories and biographies I've read lately, but several things in this book made it suspect to me. Cahill isn't a historian. The short biography at the end says only that he has a MFA in "Film and Dramatic Literature" and that he has studi I do get why this book on "How the Irish Saved Civilization" was a bestseller. Not only is it the perfect gift for St Patrick's Day, it is entertaining and readable. But I also found it superficial and not reliable. It may be the contrast with some really fine histories and biographies I've read lately, but several things in this book made it suspect to me. Cahill isn't a historian. The short biography at the end says only that he has a MFA in "Film and Dramatic Literature" and that he has studied theology. His pro-Catholic bias is notable throughout. (He even takes gratuitous slams at Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses.) I don't claim a writer of a solid history has to be a historian--some of those great histories and biographies recently read were by journalists. And all writers have their take, from conservative to Marxist, that are evident to me. But notably, the good ones, whatever their background or worldview, have pages of sources and notes to back up their claims--this didn't.

But the reason I ended up feeling the book was dubious was the actual content, starting with the title and the very premise: Irish monks saved civilization by preserving classical literature. Other reviewers have pointed out that the Western world isn't the whole of civilization. (Even as Cahill at one point conflates "the whole of the civilized world" with the Roman Empire. What about China, for instance?) And others preserved the old Latin learning. Not just in Europe, the Eastern Roman Empire remained in existence until 1453. Cahill though claims the Irish were more liberal in what they copied than those on the continent. And of the Eastern Romans, he claimed that the "literature of ancient Greece were well enough preserved at Byzantium, but Latin literature would almost certainly surely have been lost without the Irish." I find that hard to credit. They didn't read Vergil at Constantinople?

I think part of why I also find it hard to swallow his encomium to Christianity as a preserver of classical Greek and Roman civilization is that it also did so much to destroy it. One poignant illustration of that is the fate of the works of Sappho. Cahill himself notes that among the treasures of antiquity lost were almost all her poetry. What he doesn't tell you is that her poems were preserved until nearly A.D 1000, at least according to A Book of Woman Poets, "when a wrathful church destroyed whatever it could find. In 1073 her writings were publicly burned in Rome and Constantinople by order of Pope Gregory VIII." So, I guess I wonder, why is it these "great gift-givers" of civilization didn't preserve her for us?

But Cahill doesn't give me a good answer for this, especially because so little of the book even focuses on that part of the story. We don't get to Ireland at all until Part III starting on page 71. The section that tells us how the Irish saved this learning doesn't begin until Part VI on page 145--in a book of 218 pages. Between that we get a biography of St Patrick, who Cahill claimed was "the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery." And he'd be wrong by nearly a millennium--look up the "Cyrus Cylinder," called the "first charter of human rights" from the Persian king who ended the Jewish Babylonian exile--a biblical scholar such as Cahill should know better.

Other things irked me. Particularly the comparison of the barbarian "hordes" that destroyed Rome to "the Mexicans, Haitians, and other dispossessed peoples seeking illegal entry" to the United States. It's a point he repeats at the end, and seemed all the more ironic considering Cahill's condemnation of the prejudice their fellow Catholics, the Irish, experienced in America. It's not that there weren't interesting points in the book I'd like to read more about. Such as the case for Augustine's Confessions as the first real autobiography and "story of a soul" and the indomitable Brigid of Kildare, an abbess with the power of a bishop. Cahill might even be right in his take on history--but I didn't find the case presented in his book convincing. ...more

51 likes · Like · see review

Mar 26, 2008 MJ rated it liked it

Shelves: idiots-ultimate-reading, history, liked-it

After the fall of Rome Europe descended into the "dark ages" but you already know that right. But did you know that a lot of literature and culture would have been completely lost if it was not for the Irish. Yes that’s right the Irish. They contributed more than just shamrocks and a killer holiday were we get to drink green beer. Ireland was left unbothered while the "barbarians" were descending on the rest of Europe. Allowing the works collected there to be saved and passed on until Europe was ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 29, 2008 EJ Johnson rated it it was ok

I didn't like Thomas Cahill's presentation style. I will admit that I haven't studied classical (Roman) literature more than just the introduction in school classes so he lost me because of that. Also it was evident that he has a great love of lots of different literature. But I didn't like his durogatory remarks and constant referral to sex. Dissing Will Durant by calling him unoriginal seemed to be just a swipe at a competitor. Personally I like Will Durant's way of laying out history because ...more

Like · see review