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Music Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly In this elegant introduction to Greek life and thought, Cahill provides t he same majestic historical survey he has already offered for the Irish, the Jews and the Christians. He eloquently narrates the rise of Greek c ivilization and cannily isolates six archetypal figures representative o f the development of Greek thinking. He opens with a consideration of Ho mer's Iliad and its glorification of the warrior way as an exemplum of l ife in the Greek state. Cahill then proceeds to offer an evolutionary lo ok at the rise and fall of Greece by examining the wanderer (Odysseus), the politician (Solon), the playwright (Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides) , the poet (Sappho), the philosopher (the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotl e) and the artist (Praxiteles). These figures provide lessons in how to feel, how to rule, how to party, how to think and how to see. For exampl e, Cahill contends that Odysseus reveals longing and desire for love, do mestic peace and his homeland, while the rage of Achilles offers us less ons in the way to fight for one's homeland. The book is full of whimsica l characterizations, such as the depiction of Socrates as a "squat, ugly , barefoot man who did not bathe too often." The author includes generou s portions of the original writings in order to provide the flavor of th e Greek way. Once again, Cahill gracefully opens up a world that has pro vided so much of Western culture's characteristic way of thinking. Product Description: In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, Thomas Ca hill brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of an cient Greece. The Greeks invented everything from Western warfare to mystical prayer, f rom logic to statecraft. Many of their achievements, particularly in art and philosophy, are widely celebrated; other important innovations and accomplishments, however, are unknown or underappreciated. In Sailing th e Wine-Dark Sea, Thomas Cahill explores the legacy, good and bad, of the ancient Greeks. From the origins of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European tribes into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, to the formation of the city-states, to the birth of Western literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, art, and architecture, Cahill makes the dist ant past relevant to the present. Greek society is one of the two primeval influences on the Western world: While Jews gave us our value system, the Greeks set the foundation and framework for our intellectual lives. They are responsible for our vocab ulary, our logic, and our entire system of categorization. They provided the intellectual tools we bring to bear on problems in philosophy, math ematics, medicine, physics, and the other sciences. Their modes of think ing, considered in classical times to be the pinnacle of human achieveme nt, are largely responsible for the shape that the Christian religion to ok. But, as Cahill points out, the Greeks left a less appealing bequest as well. They created Western militarism and, in making the warrior the ultimate ideal, perpetrated the assumption that only males could be entr usted with the duties of citizenship. The consequences of their exclusio n of women from the political sphere and the social segregation of the s exes continue to reverberate today. Full of surprising, often controvers ial, insights, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea is a remarkable intellectual ad ventureconducted by the most companionable guide imaginable. Cahills k nowledge of his sources is so intimate that he has made his own fresh tr anslations of the Greek lyric poets for this volume.
Though none of the subsequent books in what has become "The Hinges of History" series have equaled the first one, Cahill continues to write very readable accounts of the development of Western civilization. This book, subtitled "Why th e Greeks Matter," is, as you might suspect, a sketch of the contribution s of the ancient Greeks to our culture from Homer through the influence of Greek though on early Christianity. I have a soft spot for Greek culture so I was easily won over by this boo k Though there is some value to the trend of multiculturalism that has permeated American schools in recent decades, I believe strongly that no culture has had more impact on modern Western civilization than the Gre eks and we ignore them at our peril. In examining the strengths and weak nesses of the Greeks, we can see an image of our own strengths and weakn esses. I was a little disappointed to find very little discussion of the Greek d evelopment of mathematics (beyond a brief discussion of Pythagoras, focu sing mainly on his philosophy). Greek formalization of mathematics may b e their most important legacy to us, ultimately leading to modern scienc e Instead, Cahill focuses mainly on literature, art, philosophy and pol itics and, in these areas, offers a nice history. Clearly, Cahill is knowledgeable and his prose is very readable despite h is tendency to quote extensively in this book. He doesn't offer us many unique or challenging insights but he does remind us of the great contri butions of Greek culture.
Perhaps b ecause my expectations were so high, I was a little disappointed. It is a worthy volume in his "Hinges of History" series, but it is not without some problems. But let us be honest, Cahill is a humanist and speaks of ancient Hellas from the perspective of the humanities in general rather than history or political science and that may be the problem here. Muc h of his historical narrative is episodic and misses some vital points. For instance, despite his title, "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea," he fails t o emphasize the importance of the sea to Greek life or mention the battl e of Salamis, "Holy Salamis," which according to many historians, includ ing Victor Davis Hanson, saved Western culture from the Iranian (Achaeme nid Persian) onslaught. Cahill devotes a chapter to "The Warrior: How to Fight," but makes no mention of this vital battle or the importance of Hellenic warfare by use of the trireme. The battle is not even included in his brief Chronology (later battles, Plataea and Mycale, are mentione d). True, some have questioned the overall impact of Salamis, but to the Hellenes it was a victory sent by the gods. It is interesting that this subject is missing but other, rather obscure cultural elements such as a somewhat odd emphasis on Greek sexual preferences, are included. Still , this is a valuable volume that will be embraced by the general public. In this context, his discussion of Christianity's debt to the Greeks is quite accurate and illuminating. And like a number of others he reminds us of the current relevance of Thucydides, in light of American imperia l temptaions in the Persian Gulf. Even so, the West's debt to a people t hat gave us the single most defining element of the Western Liberal Trad ition, "secularism" and the division of church and state, the very notio n that the people who live by law should have the right to write them an d govern themselves according to written constitutions, is only a passin g reference here, and reduces the impact of what could have been a much better book.
While his stu dy of the Irish and Jesus Christ pique the imagination, here Cahill plod s through the Greeks well-known accomplishments and begins with a totall y uninsightful examination of the Greeks at war. He concludes that all p eoples fight one another -- wow, the scales fall from the eyes, what won ders of analysis! How about comparing the warring Greek city-states to t he fractious relationships, on a larger geographical scale, in 20th cent ury Europe, with Parisians somewhat analogous to Athenians and Prussians a modern equivalent, at least militarily, of the hardcore Spartans? Cah ill's descriptions of Greek art are interesting, but oddly the book feat ures many photographs of proto-porn, of satyrs and symposia turned orgie s, which suggest that the art of our cultural forbearers was almost excl usively obsessed with copulation. All his books contain short phrases, interspersed in scholarly passages, that are especially designed to rock...
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