How the Irish Saved Civilization cover art

How the Irish Saved Civilization

The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

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How the Irish Saved Civilization

By: Thomas Cahill
Narrated by: Donal Donnelly
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About this listen

 The perfect St. Patrick's Day gift, and a book in the best tradition of popular history -- the untold story of Ireland's role in maintaining Western culture while the Dark Ages settled on Europe. Every year millions of Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day, but they may not be aware of how great an influence St. Patrick was on the subsequent history of civilization. Not only did he bring Christianity to Ireland, he instilled a sense of literacy and learning that would create the conditions that allowed Ireland to become "the isle of saints and scholars" -- and thus preserve Western culture while Europe was being overrun by barbarians. In this entertaining and compelling narrative, Thomas Cahill tells the story of how Europe evolved from the classical age of Rome to the medieval era. Without Ireland, the transition could not have taken place. Not only did Irish monks and scribes maintain the very record of Western civilization -- copying manuscripts of Greek and Latin writers, both pagan and Christian, while libraries and learning on the continent were forever lost -- they brought their uniquely Irish world-view to the task. As Cahill delightfully illustrates, so much of the liveliness we associate with medieval culture has its roots in Ireland. When the seeds of culture were replanted on the European continent, it was from Ireland that they were germinated. In the tradition of Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, How The Irish Saved Civilization reconstructs an era that few know about but which is central to understanding our past and our cultural heritage. But it conveys its knowledge with a winking wit that aptly captures the sensibility of the unsung Irish who relaunched civilization.©1995 Thomas Cahill; (P)1999 Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, a Division of Random House, Inc. Christianity Civilization Europe History World Ancient Ireland

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Critic reviews

Mr. Cahill's book will remain an entirely engaging, delectable voyage into th edistant past, a small treasure."
--N.Y. Times

"Lovely and engrossing."
--L.A. Times


"Cahill's lively prose breathes life into a 1,600-year-old history."
--The Boston Globe
All stars
Most relevant
What a shame that this wonderful, fascinating and sometimes moving book was spoiled by the unfortunate timbre and style of the voice of the narrator. The narrative and the stories which make it up, is so strong, that the damaging effect of the narrator's voice was subdued, thank goodness. With a less weary and strained-sounding narration the book would be of a five-star-plus quality, without question.

How the Irish Saved Civilisation

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I listened to this immediately after "A Brief History of the Celts", so it was an excellent sequel- a culture once so widespread and powerful, squeezed out of most of Europe (or assimilated), preserved knowledge and literature of the dying and fossilised Greco-Roman hegemony, as the Dark Ages enveloped mainland Europe, but also maintained their own, quirky, lively, adventurous, disputatious customs!
It is not general knowledge that the Christianity of most of this big island I live on (Great Britain) springs from Irish sources thanks to the great missionaries (Columba, Aidan, Cuthbert, etc) than to Augustine (of Canterbury) and his boss, Gregory "the Great", arriving rather late in the day to tackle the problem of the pagan Anglo-Saxon colonists. All due respect to Gregory as the first mainland European to even consider evangelisation, and to poor terrified Augustine who would rather stayed at home to wash his hair!
Celtic missionaries got about - Columbanus as far as Bobbio (Italy), via France, Brendan to Iceland, Greenland and ?N America.
But the victors write the history, (just think how Julius Caesar bad mouthed us Celts) and so in the end, Rome got the credit, as usual- and received wisdom reverted to the old stereotypes of barbaric, brutal, half-witted Celts Caesar promoted and which was far from unusual into the 20th Century.

The secret history

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This was long winded and boring. I am not sure which I detested most the book or the delivery. I found it boring, long winded and a trial of endurance as I made myself listen to the end.

Not impressed

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This is without doubt the most disappointing audiobook to which I have yet listened. The title describes the content of just one chapter in reality, ad even then it is an overstated, poorly reinforced assertion. Concentrating heavily on the work of St. Augustine of Hippo and the vicissitudes of the Roman Empire in the early part of the book, the author appears to be interested in presenting a rambling introduction to his views on the weight and significance of the saint's work as well as that of the less-well-known Roman writer Ausonius, engaging in clumsy juxtapositions in the process.

Ireland's entry comes quite late, with poor and excessively windy historical treatments of St. Patrick, the mythological Táin Bó Cuailnge and the movements of Irish saints such as Colmkille and Columba.

It becomes apparent that the author isn't sufficiently well acquainted with the subject matter, while his recourse to reprinting long tracts from ancient manuscripts is quite frankly lazy work.

The narrator is not bad - his pronunciation of Irish words is poor, yet the monotonous nature of much of the writing does come through in his presentation.

Overall quite poor and disappointing.

Don't let the title fool you!

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this book should have been edited down. Disliked the narration. The main thesis of the book was not explored enough

not convinced

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