How the Irish Saved Civilization
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From the fall of Rome to the rise of Charlemagne - the "dark ages" - learning, scholarship, and culture disappeared from the European continent. The great heritage of western civilization - from the Greek and Roman classics to Jewish and Christian works - would have been utterly lost were it not for the holy men and women of unconquered Ireland.
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 treasures. With the return of stability in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning.
Thus the Irish not only were conservators of civilization, but became shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on western culture.
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5 primary books#1 in The Hinges of History
The Hinges of History is a 5-book series with 5 primary works first released in 1995 with contributions by Thomas Cahill.
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“How the Irish Saved Civilization” tells the story about how a group of Irish monks continued to make copies of Greek and Roman books while the Visigoths and other barbarian groups destroyed many of the existing versions of those same books in continental Europe.
There's some very interesting subject matter here, but Cahill tells it in a folksy, meandering sort of way that makes it hard to take the book seriously. The actual question of the title doesn't show up until over 100 pages in, with the main focus instead being a look at pre-Christian Ireland. Which is stuff I find interesting, but also isn't exactly what I was looking for in this book.
This was just... not good. I am a firm believer that history can be and should be interesting and even entertaining — I was totally encapsulated by the title & book description, but the writing itself fell short at every turn. Cahill seemed to zoom in on a few main icons & their writings but failed to integrate them into a legitimate, cohesive narrative of the time period. He transcribed & translated a painful amount of practically meaningless passages that have left me feeling somehow more ignorant about this time period than I was before, and I knew nothing before...
