How the Irish Saved Civilization

If clickbait articles on the internet became a novel, it would be this book.

It appears to be an interesting historical view about the Irish, but is incredibly disjointed. The argument that the Irish saved civilization fits better in a pamphlet than a book. The author attempts to write it as a “story” but fails to bring the pieces together.

An example of this is the description of Augustine of Hippo. I know his story, so I know that it was not described eloquently. The author doesn't talk about Augustine's life in chronological order, but jumps around to make specific points. It was really, really confusing. For those historical figures I didn't know, this style makes it difficult to follow.

I have read academic books designed to be to-the-point and dry. Still, I prefer that style to this attempt to describe history with this narration and flow.

“How the Irish Saved Civilization” tells the story about how a group of Irish monks continued to make copies of Greek and Roman books while the Visigoths and other barbarian groups destroyed many of the existing versions of those same books in continental Europe.

There's some very interesting subject matter here, but Cahill tells it in a folksy, meandering sort of way that makes it hard to take the book seriously. The actual question of the title doesn't show up until over 100 pages in, with the main focus instead being a look at pre-Christian Ireland. Which is stuff I find interesting, but also isn't exactly what I was looking for in this book.

This was just... not good. I am a firm believer that history can be and should be interesting and even entertaining — I was totally encapsulated by the title & book description, but the writing itself fell short at every turn. Cahill seemed to zoom in on a few main icons & their writings but failed to integrate them into a legitimate, cohesive narrative of the time period. He transcribed & translated a painful amount of practically meaningless passages that have left me feeling somehow more ignorant about this time period than I was before, and I knew nothing before...