| Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Cahill
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: CDN$ 21.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 76206
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0385495544
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.09
EAN: 9780385495547
ASIN: 0385495544
Publication Date: July 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 23 | | NEXT » |
 Brilliant! July 24, 2008
Thomas Cahills fourth book, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, is part of his ongoing seven book history of western civilization entitled The Hinges of History. The book is a spectacular, wild ride through Grecian philosophy, art, politics and culture from its infancy through to its demise. Cahill writes so fluidly and descriptively one would think of him as an accomplished novelist first, historian second. This is not the case however as Cahill exhibits historical brilliance throughout the entire text.
The book culminates with the advent of Western history in what Cahill describes as the Meeting of the Waters, the point at which the two great rivers of our cultural patrimony the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian flow into each other to become the mighty torrent of Western Civilization.
Having been recently reading N.T. Wrights excellent, and exhaustive book The Resurrection of the Son of God, I recognized immediately Cahills historical support of a main premise of Wrights that the concept of bodily resurrection, though foreshadowed in Hebrew history, was unexpected and a new work of God reflected in Christianity and borrowed from no one.
Cahill writes the idea of physical resurrection struck them (the Greeks) as ghoulish. Who wants his body back anyway, once hes got rid of it? Matter is the very principle of unintelligibility. Best to be done with it. For the Jews, who had little or no belief in the immortality of the soul, only salvation in ones body could have any meaning."
I highly recommend this book as a must read. Cahill packs ridiculous amounts of information into a small space and much of it spectacularly relevant to our own experience today. I should warn readers that Cahill often becomes vulgar as he is describing sexual attitudes in Grecian art and culture. Whether this is because he wants to reflect the culture as realistically as possible or this is simply his own character it is hard to tell though I suspect a mix of both is the truth.
The book is a classic as his series is bound to beread it.
Putting it all together May 29, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was surprised by the relatively cool evaluations of this book! I have a bushel of fragments about Greek civilization beginning with Durant's Life of Greece in the eighth grade, but Cahill has sorted my fragments into a coherent mosaic which also brings it into the perspective of contemporary life. How many references I have in my "bushel" to Pericles's Funeral Oration, but why had I never read it complete, and freshly translated? Thank you, Mr. Cahill!
The Author Could Do a Lot better May 17, 2004
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first read Thomas Cahill's book "How The Irish Saved Civilization" and I was very disappointed. I was very impressed with the author's knowledge of Greek and Roman history but thought that the book was weak, and in fact most of the book supposedly on Ireland was about Greek writings, etc. So when I heard about this book I was quite interested in the book. He knows a lot of history and is well qualified but the book (again) seemed to be done under some sort of time constraint or deadline and seem to lack depth. I would be really impressed if he could sit down and put together a proper book on the subject of Greek and Roman history, maybe 600-800 pages long, and not have a series of these short "gimmick" books. So I think it is just 3 stars. My humble opinion. Jack in Toronto
Why this book might matter May 14, 2004
This book serves, as one must suppose Cahill intended it to do, as an intriguing introduction to the culture of the Ancient Greeks and their continuing influence upon Western society. Cahill's choice of wording tends to jar at times: "yip-yapping" and "woo-woo wave" for example. He rather goes over the top in trying to make this book as "cool" as possible. And his quotations from Yeats and others throughout the book presume a level of cultivation with which this cutesy verbiage is at odds. Still, one could do much worse. He manages to convey, at times, forcefully, some of the most significant and powerful currents of Greek art, thought and culture. But, in the end, the best way to learn about the Greeks is from the Greeks: Thucydides, Plato Euripides etc. If this book piques your interest at all, I would recommend picking up any one of the fine translations of these authors' works. If not, well, I suppose it's all Greek to you.
 Another "Hinge of HIstory" March 16, 2004
I suspect I would have liked this book better if I had not had Cahill's other "Hinges of History" books to compare it to. Of the four- How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, and Desire of the Everlasting Hills are the others- this was the least engaging to me. Taken by itself, I enjoyed Cahill's insight and irreverent humor as he traced the rise and fall of the Greeks from the Minoans through Alexander the Great. Using historical people or literary figures he shows us the development of the civilization in How to Fight, Feel, Party, Rule, Think and See from the perspectives of the Greeks. He acknowledges their limitations and their massive and amazing contributions. It was also interesting to read the first few pages about his approach to history and the last pages linking Greeks to other groups he has described. I look forward to the other books he has planned and this is well worth reading. Unfortunately for the author, (in my opinion) he is competing with his own earlier books and, as good as this is, it is not as good as the earlier three.
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