Customer Reviews

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

5 star:		(91)
4 star:		(69)
3 star:		(42)
2 star:		(31)
1 star:		(73)

 

 

I might as well state it plainly: this book is the stupidest scholarly work I have ever read. I gave it up halfway through, and thus read twice as much as I should have.

As a kid growing up in Ireland I remember our primary school teacher telling us about the important work carried out by Irish monks beginning in the sixth century, where they preserved and copied many important works of the ancient Western canon and slowly helped to re-illuminate Europe during the Dark Ages. Since then I've always preserved a certain curiosity about the story at the back of my mind. As a colonized people, Ireland's indigenous culture was suppressed for centuries, so could it be true that in a pre-colonial period the Irish had helped to save Western civilisation? When I saw this book on the shelf I bought it straight away.

In fairness, I should have been more circumspect. The reviews on the back cover used phrases like "shamelessly engaging, effortlessly scholarly" [Thomas Keneally]; "lyrical, playful ... entirely engaging" [NY Times]; "entertainingly told" [Sunday Telegraph] which should have rung all sorts of warning bells. Keneally (who should know better) is accidentally correct when he uses the term "effortlessly scholarly" since it's plain as day that no scholarly effort at all went into this researchless mess. I have not the space here to describe the crazed prose flowing from Cahill's out-of-control pen, nor the arm-chancing shallowness of his unbearable pseduo-intellectualism. With little of any substance to comment on, much of the book's intellectual pedigree can be can be judged from the prose style alone. Cahill plainly takes himself quite seriously as a scholar, but the mask just keeps slipping. The following are some examples. [Asterixes are mine]

Here is Cahill imagining the mindset of a Roman encountering a Greek:
"By Jupiter, don't they look the other way and let those fagg*ty tutors they hire b*gger their own children?" [p. 44]

On St. Augustine:
"a sweaty little nobody, dashing around the Mediterranean basin" [p. 56]

Following a description of Cuchullain's chariot:
"How these people would have loved the Batmobile!" [p. 86]

On the ancient Celtic world:
"They pursued the wondrous deed, the heroic gesture: fighting, f*cking, drinking, art - poetry for intense emotion, music that accompanied the heroic drinking with which each day ended, bewitching ornament for one's person and possession." [p. 96]

More than once Cahill chooses to pad out his book with long citations of largely irrelevant passages from other authors. My favourite is when he quotes four (yes, four) pages of Plato. In his premable to this block of viscous prose he says: "It is worth our while to take a few moments to receive Plato in his own words". In the next breath: "Most of Plato is impenetrable on first reading. If it begins to give you a headache, skip to the end of the passage - and just take my word for it." So apparently it's *not* worth sparing a few moments for Plato's own words. After the passage is cited, and the reader is expecting an explanation of how all this is relevant to the subject matter, the author attempts to cover his intellectual nudity with the following remarks: "The difficulty one experiences in understanding [Plato] is not a difficulty based on superficial obfuscation but on his genuine profundity. No one grasps Plato by reading him through quickly or just once." (Or by being encouraged to skip over him completely, one presumes.) Anyway, we're still waiting for the explanation. What happens next? A new paragraph begins; Cahill changes the subject. It was all bravado. He simply runs away from his own scholarship for fear of being found out. [p. 51-55]

Personally I blame a lazy publisher. As an Irishman I'd like to hear this story told - and told well - and even I think it's obvious that this manuscript should never have made it into print. A great issue is waiting to be explored about the veracity of the claim that Irish monks, endlessly chivvied by Viking raiders, still managed to make an important contribution to saving the Western intellectual canon. Cahill simply isn't up to the task. Moreover, his academic spivvery has done immeasurable damage to the claim itself. If there ever is any truth to it, and a genuine scholar ever does publish a worthwhile tract on the matter in the future, they will always find themselves facing the post-Cahill lampoonery of "The last time we were told that...".

The crowning achievement of this book's daftness is that it has somehow managed to recklessly digress and yet still remain worryingly brief. The book wanders magestically off the point almost from the very beginning, makes little effort to discuss its own thesis, and yet the text still weighs in under 220 pages. Not exactly a sign of rock-solid, lucubrating research.

Thomas Cahill's book is a feeble (and cheap) attempt to whip up Irish-American patriotism. In fact, a catchy title and an attractive cover are about the only things this book has "going for it." Cahill is completely misguided and presents his arguments with a chaotic incoherence. He is also misinformed. For ex., he states that the art of the medieval period was filled with smiling and playful demons, as it was meant to be perceived as "light" by the audience. It is common knowledge that medieval art, religious art, was on the apocalyptic end of the church propaganda spectrum. His tone is always condescending, as if he were speaking to a group of children who could never possibly comprehend the sophisticated arguments he's making. He attempts to elevate the Irish to the status of the saviors of civilization, but does so by mocking other groups, such as the Mormons (whom he calls uneducated). His style makes the topic itself less interesting. It is not scholarly or even acceptable for main-stream readers. I would love to read a book which deals with the same subject written by someone else, as the topic itself, divorced from Cahill's inaptitude, is fascinating and definitely overlooked by true scholars, since it deals with a transitional period. Probably THE worst book I have ever read.

I have been reading the history of this period for over forty years. This is the worst bunk I have ever read. Here are my reasons. 1, He fails to cite his sources. 2,He fails to prove his thesis. 3,He contradicts the very title by stating that books never vanished from Italy, Greece, and the most Romanized parts of the western Roman world. 4,He pads the book with a ton of extraneous info that has nothing to do with the topics. 5,He inexplicably bashes other groups for no reason. Lastly, the so-called style is a disorganized, and incoherent rambling. I suggest that before anyone wastes their money. They read all of the reviews of this book wih a fine tooth comb and an open mind.

The last reviwer is a bit daft. In some 70 years of reading History I have never read such lies, distortions, and incoherent gibberish. The author is CLEARLY appealing to ethnic sentiment over "EVIDENCE AND FACTS." I suggest readers read the dozen or so "Most Helpful Reviews." Those reviewers were very in depth and know their SUBJECT.

The negative reviewers are all correct, this is a horrid book. Where are the DETAILS? The author never answered several key questions. Where did the Irish get their books? How long did their handful of monasteries last? If their church was so pure and superior as the author claims. Why did all of the Europeans adopt the more organized ROMAN CHURCH? He also bashed Hispanics, Chinese, Germans, Mormons, and the very Greco-Roman Civilization that he wants the reader to believe was saved by a handful of monks. This gets 10 NEGATIVE STARS, the publisher should be sued for printing this junk!!!!!

The only way this book would have had a drop of truth is if Italy, Greece, Persia, and the entire Middle East had sank into the sea! As others have painfully mentioned this non-scholarly book is filled with bigotry, lies, distortions, and selective amnesia! I saw the author on C-SPAN years ago, and like a politician he was evasive whenever his nutty claims were questioned. His book proved only that he can pad a demented thesis. He will never be as honest or as talented as Frank McCourt who wrote "Angela's Ashes." But, I doubt even he could make the title convincing? I will never waste my time on anything TC writes again.

The Irish have been claiming for a long time that they "saved civilization." But this is pure myth, and Cahill's entertaining and seemingly erudite book does little but perpetrate this myth. Let the reader beware: Roman and Greek texts were not preserved primarily by Irish monestaries--indeed Irish monestaries were always hard up for texts, and those that did circulate were primarily post-classical Christian works. The story of Irish Christianity is fascinating and of the highest historical importance, but it is not to be found in Cahill's somewhat silly book. I recommend instead The Rise of Western Christendom by Peter Brown, which contains a very illuminating discussion of the Celtic Christianity that arose around the great monestaries of Ireland and Northumbria.

As other reviewers have pointed out - this book is all about its clever title. Cahill does a very poor job at his subject. He really is not in touch with Ireland and the book reads like it is padded from sources that are not familiar with current information. I found particular irritating the way he "patronized" the Irish as an island of children. Irish contribution to world scholarship is better described elsewhere. I would not recommend this book for those really interested in medieval Ireland - I would recommend McCaffrey's In Search of Ancient Ireland as a better alternative for those really looking for a quality read.

The Armenian, Coptic, Greek, and Roman chuches, Origen, Cassiodorus, and Boethius, all preceded the Irish monks! They supplied the Irish with their books before the Benedictines. PATRICK WAS A ROMAN, NOT AN IRISHMEN! The Irish did not have monasteries in continental Europe before the aboves. Nor were they as successful. Did the Irish reach China, India, the Sudan? NO THEY DID NOT, THE BENEDICTINES DID! As reviewers titled Honesty, Drivel, and Truthful History have pointed out the Germans and Huns did not destroy all of the schools, libraries, and scriptoriums. Even pope LEO in 452 stated that he was surprised that the Barbarians had largely left the libraries alone. The archaeological record which Mr. Cahill chose to ignore PROVES THIS! Even the Vandals left Augustine's library in Hippo North Africa intact. I politely suggest to all of the reviewers that they read dozens of other authors who have written books on the era 200-800A.D. to get a more Objective analysis. There are some good suggestions from some of the other reviewers.

Don't get me wrong- this is a very entertaining book. If you've ever hung out in a bar and met one of those droll sons of the Esmerald Isle spinning a hilarious tale or two after a wee bit of the ol' poteen just imagine a whole book of such tales purporting to show how the Irish saved Europe's bacon. No pesky historical FACTS get in the way of a single-minded Irish Catholic view of the past. Reading this reminded me of the Cold war Soviets who claimed the Russians invented everything or the Greek dad in the recent popular movie who thought every word had Greek roots and the Greeeks were best at everything. And the Greeks is where this book's theory comes CRASHING down because of...BYZANTIUM!...in this work described as "a small defensible state"!!! The fact is the the Byzantine Empire continued the Roman Empire for centuries after the "fall" of the western Roman empire and all of the supposedly lost civilization of Rome was there all along in a huge area of eastern and southern Europe. This is mentioned on ONE! page in the book. In fact the so-called Dark Ages were really never as dark or uncivilised as they popularly thought to be. The West is Better prejudices of our time come through clearly- its as if Eastern and Central Europe didn't exist. I think the Germans would be surprised to find out that it isn't Romanesque architecture and art from German towns that count but Irish inspired manuscripts. A topsy-turvy view of the world and history is displayed here- the classic Romans and Greeks are "pessimistic and dark" whereas the newly christianised Irish are humanistic and freedom-loving! We have here a great example of a new kind of popular history where entertainment and prejudice mix to prove whatever you want. If you're Irish and Catholic you'll love this book- everybody else bring your grain of salt!