Why the Greeks Matter (The Hinges of History) - Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea

Thomas Cahill's "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter" is another in his series of books entitled "The Hinges of History" in which he focuses on an historical civilization and tries to show their impact and relevance on the modern Western world, all written for a general audience. This is a very shallow and unenlightening survey of Greek culture, tinged with some annoyances of Cahill's writing.

Cahill's doesn't try to deliver a general history of Ancient Greece. His discussions of the classical elements of Greek culture are interesting and well-directed for a general audience, and he quotes liberally from many of the famous authors and works. This is a solid effort but not noteworthy.

However, there are two threads that really undermine this book as a serious work of scholarship. Cahill quotes extensively from Greek porn and spends a lot discussing Greek sexuality; while this is certainly a subject of extensive work, Cahill never explains why the crasser parts of Greek culture matter today. He seemed to delight in writing and translating these passages, to the point that his own writing (not the translations) included 4-letter words found in R-rated movies, not serious scholarship. The second problem is that Cahill attempted at times to make comparisons (and tenuous ones) to and politically-charged aspersions at the current Global War on Terror and the past American Presidential administration.

Cahill's work is moderately interesting but unimpressive. There was little enduring that Cahill wrote except for his unprofessional discussion of Greek eroticism and snide political comments.

At a time when the western world and western values are under siege from secular and third world fascists this book is a needed remedy extolling the virtues of Greek Civilization and Greek common values. The Greeks are one of the many pillars of the western way of life. The author shows how much of our heritage comes from the Greek way of Life and Greek values. He explains how Greek Democracy, although not perfect, laid the foundation for a small group of American rebels in 1776. The book explains how Greek ideas about freedom and love of art helped create the Renaissance in the 1500s which influences our tolerance of the profane today.
This is an important work, although by no means the most interesting of the `hinges' series it is a very insightful and intelligent account. The book mostly focuses on Athenian Greek life and the philosophers and ideas it produced.
An interesting book, a good companion to the other `Hinges' books that look at the Irish and the Jewish contributions to the Western way of life.

A rollicking journey through time and culture. Cahill follows the taproot of Western Civilization from today through the Enlightenment to ancient Greece. The tree is comprised of branches on how to make war, what is valuable in literature, the arts, philosophy and religion. It was the Greeks, through Enlightenment thinkers, who provided the seeds of American democratic ideals. Cahill's irreverent prose, hopefully shocking to some, reads like a sophomoric rebellion against his Jesuit mentors. Sex plays a major role in nearly every aspect of Greek society [and what's novel about that?] and Cahill delves into it with gusto. Even here, the Greeks seem to have shown more restraint than Cahill.
Cahill is always a challenging and invigorating read. He holds your attention through dazzling prose and iconoclastic concepts. By dividing the book conceptually instead of simply chronologically, you are given time to pause and reflect on his ideas. For a man relating history, Cahill projects unrelaistic modern values to ancient times. He deems the Greeks "classicist, racist and sexist". Yet these modern terms would puzzle any Greek of the period. He extols their intellectual accomplishments without inquiring how the leisure time to pursue these hobbies was achieved. Slavery was the labour-saving device of the day. No-one then challenged its existence, why does Cahill do so now? Slavery and division of resources bred a social hierarchy allowing the arts to flourish and democracy to evolve. Only anarchy and pure communism can do otherwise - neither lead to arts or stable rule. To call the Greeks "sexist" while admiring their presentation of the human form, whether male or female, seems a bit thin. Given his presentation of goddesses, muses, and Sappho herself, his stance is almost false.
Cahill's title is interesting in view of how little attention he gives the Greek empire. Their forays around the Mediterranean are but sketchily noted. Greek settlement on Sicily is mentioned, but little else. There is allusion of cultural imports from Egypt, but these might have been obtained from Egyptians or Levant peoples bringing them in as much as the Greeks seeking innovation from outside. The focus here is Athens, almost to the point of exclusion of the remainder of Greece. Sparta's militarism is touched on in contrast to the more democratic and urbane Athens. 'How Greek was Macedonia?', Cahill enquires, then dismisses the question. Yet, it was Macedonia's Alexander, as Cahill himself notes, who extended the "Greek Ideal" further afield than the Athenians could envision.
If the reader can recognise that this book can only represent a small step toward understanding ancient societies, particularly that of the Greeks, then this book may be considered a good start. Although sprinkled with notes, coyly marked with Greek letters instead of numbers or asterisks, this is hardly a scholarly effort. The use and definition of Greek words that migrated into other European languages is useful, but tedious to transcribe. It's not clear why the Greek alphabet is included, but the Pronouncing Glossary is truly only a recapitulation of the "cast of characters" for which the Index could suffice. The Notes and Sources are a good reading list, focussing on recent works where possible. There is no discussion of contending ideas among scholars studying the period here or in the text. A collection of photos enhances and expands on some of the text, and the one map is useful if you don't have an atlas. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Thomas Cahill provides a introductory course on the influence of ancient Greece that balances broad descriptions with concrete examples. I've never highlighted quite so many direct quotes, insights and conclusions. Along with the Odyssey, and Atwood's Penelopiad, I'm beginning to feel ready for Greece.

Unfortunately, there is little in the book relating the Greeks to modern life, very few instances of why the Greeks really matter to us. It is an interesting discussion of the Athenians but virtually nothing about the many other Greek City-States, including Sparta, was included, and these other polis are no less important in defining Ancient Greek society as the Athenians. How did the oligarchs and kingdoms abounding in the Aegean two millennia ago affect future history? Is there an element of Sparta in present day governance, or in other aspects of life today? What were the differences in the various Greek States and why did democracy lose out among these various other systems? Is it true that the Athenians virtually argued themselves to death through their democratic processes and were they more successful when they turned, although briefly, to oligarchic rule? This could have been a much better book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the author's earlier work on how the Irish saved civilization. But this book was a disappointing compendium of Greek myths, legends and history that never reveals a plan behind the book. Taken in its subparts, many sections are engagingly informative in an elegant if sometimes pretentious prose. Yet the author ambles from here to there in a disjointed narrative with interesting nuggets but little insight. Where's the big picture? The author attempts to wrap it up at the end with a sentence about the Greeks' "variety of human response, lightening quick transmutations, resourcefulness, and inexhaustible creativity."

A subtitle like "A Greek Treasury of Personal Vignettes" might have been more descriptive and merited another star. But it falls short as a "hinge of history" with impoverished and even maladaptive connections (FDR as Solon - really?) to the modern world. I am sorry to not recommend it.

How the Irish Saved Civilization is a marvelous book. 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 the Greeks Matter," is, as you might suspect, a sketch of the contributions 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 book. 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 Greeks and we ignore them at our peril. In examining the strengths and weaknesses of the Greeks, we can see an image of our own strengths and weaknesses.
I was a little disappointed to find very little discussion of the Greek development of mathematics (beyond a brief discussion of Pythagoras, focusing mainly on his philosophy). Greek formalization of mathematics may be their most important legacy to us, ultimately leading to modern science. Instead, Cahill focuses mainly on literature, art, philosophy and politics and, in these areas, offers a nice history.
Clearly, Cahill is knowledgeable and his prose is very readable despite his 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 contributions of Greek culture. It is a valuable thing to do.

I had read Cahill's other three "Hinges of History" titles before I read this one. In comparison with the other three books, "Sailing the Wine Dark Seas" seems less planned and less insightful. Cahill never really establishes a solid link between the Greek world and our own. This is not to say that he does not explain Greek contributions to art, theater, and philosophy. However, at the end of the reading Cahill left me unconvinced that the Greeks were that important in the shaping of the modern world. Of course, the Greeks did make significant, lasting contributions. Cahill simply does a poor job of making the connections seem important.

If you are going to read a Cahill book, I recommend "How the Irish Saved Civilization."

I wanted this to be a great read, unfortunately it was not. The author spent more time on Greek sexuality, specifically homosexuality, than on any other topic. Every chapter, whether it dealt with Philosophy, Art or War, spent an inordinate amount of time delving into Greek eroticism. In the end I felt that Cahill delighted in using foul language and crass terms for shock value -- they added nothing and certainly became more than annoying towards the end. Cahill opens and closes the book by talking about America and North Korea -- dating the material and making me wonder how serious he was when he wrote it.

Thankfully it was a quick read and not too much of my time was lost. I suggest you pass on this book and look for another. You won't learn anything interesting here, unless you want to know more about the sexual habits in ancient Greece.

This is a disappointing book. Its title suggests an intellectual adventure of the new, and its subtitle promises that it will be about why the Greeks are important to us -- in other words, what the ancient Greeks offered that is distinct to them and that made western civilization possible. This book does not deliver on the promises of its title.
It is a rehash of standard scholarship delivered in language of the common man (common according to Cahill). As such it presents what amounts to a laundry-list of non-essentials that does not clearly differentiate the Greeks from other cultures, nor account for western civilization. For example, this list includes the following Greek "contributions" to the West: blood-lusting militarism, vowels, the subconscious yearning for community, unfettered discourse and inquiry, homosexuality, pornography, orgiastic debauchery, slavery, democracy, political theatre, the idea of innate guilt, xenophobia, sexism, racism, imperialism, "help" inventing things like philosophy, science and history, the Socratic Method, the syllogism, transcendentalism and the divine, improvements in architecture and sculpture, pathos and yearning for an impossible ideal, pedophilia, reckless conceit, the idea of self-sacrifice for the common good. How can the reader determine what out of this hash made western civilization possible? In the spirit of cultural relativism, Cahill offers no guidance.
Cahill's list of non-essentials ignores the most fundamental Greek contribution that made western civilization possible: the discovery and use of reason. Because Cahill does not recognize this foundational, defining contribution of the Greeks, he cannot differentiate those aspects of the Greeks that are due to their discovery of reason versus those inherited from irrational, primitive cultures that in no way made the West possible.
All in all, Cahill's work is without distinction -- it is typical of a certain stream of academia still knocking around since WWII that remains fascinated with unreason. For example Cahill devotes over 20 pages to Plato and his Socrates, quoting extensively in loving detail, while he offers only a couple of pages in passing reference to Aristotle. This is a standard pattern of some academics who still find comfort in the rambling, transcendental dialogues of Plato, and chilly apprehension before the disciplines of Aristotle. On this score there is nothing new here.
The banality of this book is sealed by its failure to acknowledge that there is such a thing as human greatness, or to name what it is about western civilization that is truly great as compared with other cultures. The cultural relativism of this book, so in-line with mainstream thinking today, renders the Greeks as just another group of people that did some things that we sort of do too. The only interest offered in this alleged adventure is knowing that the Greeks were the first to do a lot of what we do. How boring.
The only originality this work offers to the great conversation about the classical world is the author's flippant "common man" style that includes four-letter words and silly footnotes about banning SUVs and Donald Rumsfeld of all things.
If readers want books that do offer a view of why the Greeks matter, they are much better off exploring Edith Hamilton's The Greek Way, or The Greek Achievement by Charles Freeman (who Cahill cattily describes in his Sailing book as an "amateur" -- a projection on Cahill's part.) For the best view to the Greeks, the Loeb Classical Library offers a true adventure over the wine-dark sea.

Thomas Cahill has an interesting ability to write history about certain people that distinguishes him from other writers. Rather than going into specific information about dates, events, and famous people, he discusses fundamental factors that bring to the surface the importance of a particular group.

He was extremely successful with this style of writing when he wrote about the contributions of the Irish to Western Civilization after their conversion to Christianity. He followed up on this theme of writing by researching the tremendous effect that the Jewish people had on the development of a civil and moral society. Cahill displayed an exceptional skill in highlighting how significant the Jewish people were in positively changing the outlook of life in the Middle East and in the West without simply quoting stories from The Bible.

One expected this unique style of research and writing to continue as he wrote about the contributions of Greek society. The subtitle of this book is descriptive, because the Greeks truly do matter-they have mattered for nearly three thousand years. Unfortunately, Cahill missed the mark on explaining why they mattered so long ago, and how their contributions to Western life are still pertinent today.

When talking about the Greeks, one cannot leave out the mythology. However, Cahill tended to dwell too much on this aspect of Greek history.

For bad or for worse, many people associate the ancient Greeks with a licentious society. During Cahill's overview of this aspect of the Greeks, he became too vulgar in his descriptions of the open sexuality of old Greek society.

When Cahill compares parts of ancient Greece to the modern era, he tends to stray into areas that do not provide adequate comparisons. When describing a speech by Pericles, he somehow finds a reason to mention sport utility vehicles (SUVs). He further brings up references to John Kennedy and the struggles of black people without a clear relation to Greeks. As he attempts to criticize the current war in the Middle East, he mentions the lack of allies similar to the situation of Athens. The comparison is definitely subjective, since many will argue that there are indeed allies in the current struggle, so the comparison is not relevant to the study of Athens.

Some positive areas that he covered include the discussion of Rome and art in the Renaissance period. He also closed with a good conclusion by illuminating the Greek contributions and how they mixed with Judeo-Christian values, ultimately leading to the development of Western Civilization.

Although this work does not rank as high as "How the Irish Saved Civilization" or "The Gifts of the Jews", I would still recommend reading it. I look forward to the next book in his Hinges of History series.

As a Greek-American, a college professor who has taught a course on the ancient Greeks (Hellenes), and something of a fan of Thomas Cahill, I was very excited to see his latest book on the rise of the Western Liberal Tradition, "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter." Perhaps because 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. Much of his historical narrative is episodic and misses some vital points. For instance, despite his title, "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea," he fails to emphasize the importance of the sea to Greek life or mention the battle of Salamis, "Holy Salamis," which according to many historians, including Victor Davis Hanson, saved Western culture from the Iranian (Achaemenid 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 mentioned). 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 imperial temptaions in the Persian Gulf. Even so, the West's debt to a people that gave us the single most defining element of the Western Liberal Tradition, "secularism" and the division of church and state, the very notion that the people who live by law should have the right to write them and govern themselves according to written constitutions, is only a passing reference here, and reduces the impact of what could have been a much better book.

I am enjoying this book, but have the same problem with it that I encountered in "Irish"; Mr. Cahill makes statements that are clearly speculative read as fact. I could make an extensive list, and these obvious to me...an uneducated dilettante with little scholarly inclination. It makes me question the veracity of the facts he presents that I am not familiar with. So, while I enjoy the imagery and (unlike most reviewers here) his irreverent, gleeful quotation of Greece's more "earthy" literary offerings, I am not sure how much I'm learning actual history as opposed to Thomas Cahill's version of how history SHOULD'VE been.

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 other customers who rate Wine-Dark Sea poorly seem prejudiced by having read other books by Cahill, and find this title wanting by comparison. But I carry no such baggage. I haven't read anything else by Cahill. Provides an amphora's worth of insight to the Zeitgeist and culture of Ancient Greece. I found Wine-Dark Sea fascinating and absorbing. My only quibble is that it isn't long enough. If you're only going to read one book about Ancient Greece this is the one.

The best volume in Cahill's "Hinges of History" series by sheer weight of content and it's historical importance. It is nothing short of a Greek Tragedy, however, that such a "cream-skimming" review be hailed as important or original when these things should be known by every western "grandchild" of Greece (and educated people everywhere). History's most substantial subjects deserve more . . . substance. So with this relativist reasoning, I definitely recommend this book (but NOT the audio book of which Olympia Dukakis's "bull in a china shop" reading is the least euphonic experience I've had in years).

Another excellent book from Thomas Cahill, this time on the contributions of the ancient Greeks to the modern Western world. If you want to know who you are and why you think and act the way you do -- read his Hinges of History series now!

This is another of Thomas Cahill's wonderful series he calls the Hinges of Hisory. It is informative and entertainingly written, providing the link between the ancient Greeks and our own art, attitudes and institutions of government, religion and personal values.

The author does a reasonable job of presenting some minor insights into the Ancient Greek experience however his political bias mars an otherwise credible albeit abbreviated analysis of Ancient Greeks as the progenitors of Western Civilization. His occasional use of obscenities throughout the book also detracts from its scholarship. Several of his insights and comparisons are tenuous to say the least and are not completely thought out. To one familiar with Greek many of his insights are obvious.

The author begins by contrasting the Iliad with the Odyssey arguing that one is an example of man's destructive militarism and the other an example of man's natural tendency to return to his home and the bosom of his faithful wife. He likens Odysseus at the end of his journey to Andromache the faithful wife of Hector. Homer must be turning over in his grave. The author fails to see that the epics are about the larger themes of man as an individual as he competes and struggles with himself and the external world both natural and supernatural. The author compares Greek militarism with President Bush's war on terror and likens it to the neo Conservative approach to foreign affairs. However instead of praising it he incredibly denounces it and goes so far as to predict its failure. While it is true that neo Conservative thought is based on Greek militarism it is the only means of maintaining world dominance which should be, and is, the only course for Western Civilization. To think otherwise is na?ve, absurd and laughable.

The author moves from war to a chapter titled "The Poet - How to Party" here the modern obligatory homage to homosexuality is made. Turning his attention to `How to Rule" he goes so far as to compare Franklyn Roosevelt with Solon. A more unlikely comparison I cannot conceive. The founding fathers are much more akin to Solon than is FDR who tried to undermine the Republic by introducing a statist ideology. This same chapter is also titled "The Politician and The Playwright". He justifies the transitions from Solon to Aeschylus by the weakest of arguments saying that both political discourse and the theater consist of a gathering of people into a single place.

In the chapter on "How to Think" the author spends an inordinate amount of pages on anecdotes from Plato's Republic and of course includes the symposium where once again homosexuality is discussed among the characters in the Republic and the concepts of love and beauty are examined, an odd choice for such a chapter on how to think, yet Aristotle's logic, ethics and science is given scant attention. While there is no denying that the Ancient Greeks thought about homosexuality, as they thought of almost everything else, at no time in history has so much attention been paid to this subject as in recent years and unfortunately this is an example of this current fad.

When discussing Ancient Greece's unparalleled contribution to art the author once again lapses into the homoerotic and more perverse aspects of the subject choosing to focus on the trivial while once again giving scant attention to the truly profound.

In the final chapter he likens JFK to Pericles and sets JFK as the pinnacle of American dominance. He is clearly confused at this point. The recent president most like Pericles is Ronald Reagan.

The author does finally acknowledge that Greek thought appeals to man because it ultimately elevates the individual above the group and that the true heritage of Ancient Greece is the elevation of the individual man as hero not the state as heroic.

Ancient Greece set the stage for the American experience. America is the Athens of old and its Pericles was Ronald Reagan who, unlike Pericles, survived to vanquish the Soviet Union, the Sparta of today. America thereby becomes the standard bearer for Western Civilization which remains and will continue to be the dominant world view. This is one insight that evaded the Author and his work is the poorer for it.

Not as concise and tightly written as Cahill's other works on Judaism, Christianity and the Irish. Not a bad starting point on the Greeks, yet seemed confused and disorganized at times. Still, many bright spots and certainly worth a look and 4 stars.

Mr. Cahill is an accomplished, erudite, sophisticated academic with a gift for simplifying the complexities of ancient civilizations and, thereby, making them accessible to the casual modern reader. Sadly, in Sailing the Wine-Dark Seas, he has allowed his obvious preoccupation with base erotica (often stooping to vulgar phrases that most who are reading this text would not use in discourse with close friends)to obscure the assumed goal of enlightening the masses. Athough clearly more than adequately conversant with the culture under discussion, Cahill provides the reader with only the most superficial analysis and precious little original thought. In addition, Mr. Cahill's anti-Bush political beliefs are permitted to intrude into the narrative, serving only to demean his scholarship and date his work. A very disappointing offering in what is otherwise an excellent series.

There has recently arisen a small cottage-industry of writers pronouncing the death of classics as an academic discipline. While the jury is still out on this question, there are few more powerful indictments of academia's failure to reach an audience than Thomas Cahill's fourth volume in his Hinges of History series: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea (Anchor 2003). That an apparently intelligent and well-read man could be so ignorant of classical scholarship of the last century is simply appalling.

Cahill starts, as he must, with the Iliad and the Odyssey, since Homer stands as the literary foundation stone both of Greek poetry and Western literature generally. Now these poems are extremely dense, having been composed over centuries as the culmination of Greek oral tradition. They have also been intensively studied, and even a basic bibliography of Homeric studies can run to hundreds of entries in English, French and German.

Homer in this respect can be analogized to modern chess openings, which have also been exhaustively analyzed. Different approaches to interpreting the poems can be likened to the various openings, such as the Ruy Lopez, the Sicilian and the Queen's Gambit Declined. One can, for instance, read Hector and not Achilles to be the hero of the Iliad, but this must meet a number of difficulties, rather like the Sicilian defense (Dragon variation) can be expected to meet the Yugoslav attack. How will the interpreter (or the chess player) respond to these challenges?

Cahill for his part seems blissfully ignorant of any problems at all. He adopts the approach of reading Hector as the hero. (SWDS, p. 34.) To continue the chess analogy, one can call this a playable position; the last time I recall it being advanced intelligently was by James Redfield (1975). However, there are several well-known problems, including: 1.) The language of Achilles; 2.) The genealogy of Achilles; and 3.) The established Greek tradition, which unequivocally made Achilles the hero of the Iliad.

As to the first of these problems, I do not mean to write a book on the subject; this has already been done by scholars Cahill seems not to have heard of: Adam Parry (1956) and Richard Martin (1989). Briefly, persuasive linguistic studies have shown that Achilles speaks in a higher register than the other heroes - what Martin termed the "expansion aesthetic."

What does it say of Hector, if he is the hero of the Iliad, that he does not sound as heroic? (One can read Hamlet to say that Polonius is the hero of the piece, done in by a homicidal maniac, but then Hamlet is just so much more eloquent.) This is not a problem for Cahill. Of course it is not a problem; he apparently has not read the poem in Greek and has not read the scholars who have.

Perhaps the most difficult problem with elevating Hector at the expense of Achilles, whom Cahill dismisses as "a petulant boy who leaves the playground with his toys" (SWDS, p. 66), is that it makes the choice of Achilles (too simply: between glory with a short life and obscurity with a long one) virtually meaningless. All one is left with then is the raw carnage of the poem, with few redeeming features, which in fact is precisely where Cahill ends up: at the precedent to the "Western war machine" (SWDS, p. 45). This is a gross disservice to Homer.

In similar fashion, Cahill misses the importance of nostos (return) in the Odyssey, can find neither "complexity of metaphor nor subtlety of concept" (SWDS, p. 122) in Aeschylus, launches a discussion of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex without considering kinds of knowledge, and accepts Euripides' Medea as though it were a historic account without artifice. He also manages to forget the Sophists (and the physis/nomos debate) in his treatment of Plato and Socrates, and then, inexplicably, places Sophism at a later period (SWDS, p. 251).

For a kind of grand finale, Cahill dismisses the whole of Roman culture: its language, drama and philosophy (SWDS, p. 200), and its religion (SWDS, p. 252 ["the Romans may have had the most boring religion of all"].) In this breathtaking display of sheer stupidity, Cahill has raised the art of opinionated rant to heights undreamed of by talk radio.

I cannot end this review without mentioning the factual problems in Cahill's book; they litter the landscape like empty Coke bottles in the Plaka. On virtually every page, one can find dubious assertions, typographical errors and outright mistakes. For instance, the division of the Iliad and the Odyssey into 24 books was probably "a product of post-Homeric activity" (Kirk [1985]), not done by "Homer" (SWDS, p. 62). Second, Calypso (Od. 5:57) and not Circe (Od. 10:210-211) lived in a cave (SWDS, p. 71). Third, Nausicaa went out for washing clothes (Od. 6:90-95), not a swim (SWDS, p. 74). Fourth, there was only sometimes a connection between the satyr play and the dramatic trilogy (SWDS, p. 142). Fifth, the term for the beloved was eromenos, not eremenos (SWDS, p. 178). Sixth, Socrates' divine calling probably was not from childhood (SWDS, p. 181). Seventh, The battle of Thermopylae took place in 480 BCE, not in 490 BCE (SWDS, p. 189). Eighth, the terms person, substance and nature are Latin, not Greek (SWDS, p. 257).

I have been a little hard on Cahill, primarily because he is a knucklehead, but I gave him two stars for my review. Why? He loves Sappho, and that shows very good taste. However, I could never recommend this book to anyone seeking even a rudimentary knowledge of Greek culture. Cahill is too much like the unofficial guide one sometimes finds in Athens: he shows you the ruins of an ancient falafel stand and tells you it is the Parthenon. He is not a bad writer; just badly misinformed.

Thomas Cahill steps back into history and brings it to life. From the Homeric epics through politicians, playwrights and philosophers he assembles the cast and directs the reader to remember again why the ancient Greeks are so important to us today. With his usual wit and wonderful side-notes he illumines our path to see the message this history teaches. He is the teacher we all should have had in our college classics departments!

One would think a person with Mr. Cahill's education and vocabulary would have found suitable euphemisms for 'c***sucker' and the 'F' word. Masking this garbage under the guise of intellectual freedom and reality is truely sad. Including shards of porn to reflect the art of Greece is another example of Mr. Cahill's taste and sensibilities and more reason to avoid this book if you don't find such things enlightening. Go with Gustav Schwab's "Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece" or Michael Grant's "The Rise of the Greeks" or Allen Mandelbaum's translation of Ovid and pass on Cahill.

There are at least four million plants and animals on earth, which means there are four million ways of staying alive. Yet, Cahill is devoting a series of books to the dubious proposition that only half-a-dozen or so really matter.
The book expresses a basically good idea -- how did our modern world come to be? His hypothesis contends the Greeks invented it, he rounds up the usual collection of facts to prove his assumption. It's impressive, and it can't be denied the Greeks came up with some of the world's finest arguments to support democracy. But, they also came up with fine arguments against democracy; Plato's arguments for "rule by the best" hobbled the world for at least 2,500 years.
Plato tried to provide answers; for example, in ranking government from the finest to the worst, he ranked aristocracy as the best. Next came military rule, then a business oligarchy, then the rule by inexperts which he called democracy; and, worst of all, tyranny. It's hardly surprising church and secular leaders warmly endorsed Plato's views for the past 2,500 years.
The book is an interesting compilation of some Greek ideas. He writes, "fate was central to Greeks and Romans, hope is central to Jews and Christians." Yet, democracy is an exuberant expression of hope. Unfortunately, Cahill fails to reconcile a government based on hope with the idea the Greeks believed in fate. As in his narrow argument about the Irish saving civilization, he ignores the full panopoly of Greek ideas and accomplishments and the impact of non-Greek ideas.
Direct democracy failed in Greece. Modern representative democracy evolved in an unbroken but greatly tortured path from the equally ancient "althing" of Scandinavia. In the late eighteenth century, the debate in England and America about the nature of democracy cited Greece as a diffuse distant dim ideal to justify preserving and/or changing the status quo. On a practical basis in America, the Iroquois confederacy may have had more impact than anything from Greece. You'll never know from this book.
Life adapts itself to different environments, as Charles Darwin discovered when he saw finches. Likewise, democracy adapts itself to different environments, which is why England and the United States are equally democratic in profoundly different ways. You'll never know from this book.
Greek culture was inherited from Asia Minor, Crete, Phoenicia, and Egypt -- just as American culture is a world-wide amalgam. The tragedy of ancient Greece, still a destructive feature of the Balkans, is the inability to unite in any common cause except a passion to destroy each other. You'll never learn it from this book.
The ancient Greek genius was to question everything -- not to offer answers. Read "Antigone" and tell me the correct answer. It's a pity Cahill didn't focus on this issue, and leave the thinking and conclusions to the reader. Greek failures may well be of far more use to us today than their limited and brief successes.
Granted, near the end of the book in discussing the decline and fall of Greece, he outlines a disturbing parallel in modern politics, "Though the gods were more and more loudly invoked, the prayers rang hollow, the appeal to conscience turned mute, and any reference to social justice tended to be met with a knowing smirk."
The Greeks turned cynical as their society declined, just as many Americans are now cynical about their own "Smirker-in-Chief." The Greeks had no answer, Cahill offers none. If the Greeks really mattered, we could learn from them. If not, this book offers as much insight as comparing the first-class and steerage-class menus on the S.S. Titanic.
Our civilization is a lot more complicated than "one people solves all." You'll never learn it from this book.