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

Thomas Cahill

ISBN 10: 0340637870 / ISBN 13: 9780340637876

Published by Sceptre, 1996

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # ZBV.0340637870.VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe
• Publisher: Sceptre
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0340637870
• ISBN 13: 9780340637876
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

''Shamelessly engaging, effortlessly scholarly, utterly refreshing''
Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler''s Ark

''A small treasure''
New York Times

''This sweepingly confident overview is more entertainingly told than any previous account''
Sunday Telegraph

Ireland played the central role in maintaining European culture when the dark ages settled on Europe in the fifth century: as Rome was sacked by Visigoths and its empire collapsed, Ireland became ''the isle of saints and scholars'' that enabled the classical and religious heritage to be saved.

In his compelling and entertaining narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Irish monks and scrines copied the mauscripts of both pagan and Christian writers, including Homer and Aristotle, while libraries on the continent were lost forever. Bringing the past and its characters to life, Cahill captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilisation.

Review

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 treasury. When stability returned in Europe, these Irish scholars were instrumental in spreading learning, becoming not only the conservators of civilization, but also the shapers of the medieval mind, putting their unique stamp on Western culture.