Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller
Find it in a WorldCat library
Compare prices at major online bookstores
|
BDD Audio, $16.99
3 hours
|
It's a joy, and a rare one at that, to listen to a book that's refreshing, entertaining, engaging, and scholarly all in one. How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill is all of that and what's more, it's perfectly performed by Liam Neeson who lets a bit of his native brogue slip through. Cahill tells the story of how the Irish, "who were just learning to read and write," in the centuries following the fall of Rome, "took up the great labor of copying all of western literature" and how these scribes became the conduits through which the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian cultures were transmitted to the tribes of Europe. Without these Irish monks and missionaries we might have lost not only Homer and Virgil, Plato and Aristotle but "twelve centuries of lyric beauty, aching tragedy, intellectual inquiry, scholarship and sophistry, and the love of wisdom . . . " And in recounting this obscure "hinge" of history, Cahill offers his own discerning, delightful insights into the evolution of the Irish soul and spirit.
Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month. Don't miss her audio book reviews on CNN's Sunday Morning.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.