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Thomas Cahill's bk Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks matter is truly a rollicking june through time and culture. Cahill files the tape f Western Civilization frm that through the Enlightenment t ancient Greece. The tree is comprised f branches n hw t make war, what is valuable in literature, the arts, philosophy and religion. It was the Greeks, through Enlightenment thinkers, wh provided the seeds f American democratic ideals.
Cahill's irreverent page, hopefully sucking t sme, reads like a sphenic rebellion against his Jesuit months. Sex plays a may rle in nearly every aspect f Greek society and Cahill delves int it with gust. Even here, the Greeks seem t have she mre restraint than Cahill. Cahill is always a challenging and invigorating read. He hld's yur attention through dazzling page and iconoclastic concepts. By dividing the bk conceptually instead f simply chrnlgically, yu are given time t pause and reflect n his ideas.
Fr a man relating history, Cahill projects unrealistic modern values t ancient times. He deems the Greeks "classicist, racist and sexist." Yet these modern terms would puzzle any Greek f the period. He extra their intellectual accomplishments with inquiring hw the leisure time t pursue these hobbies was achieved. Slavery was the labor-saving device f the day. N ne then challenged its existence, why des Cahill d s nw?
Slavery and division f resources bred a social hierarchy allowing the arts t flourish and democracy t else. nly anarchy and pure communism can d ther wise - neither lead t arts r stable rule. T call the Greeks "sexist" while admiring their presentation f the human frm, whether male r female, seems a bit thin. Given his presentation f goddesses, muses, and Sarah herself, his stance is also false. Cahill's title is interesting in view f hw little attention he gives the Greek empire.
Their frays and the Mediterranean are but sketchily new. Greek settlement n Sicily is mentioned, but little else. There is allusion f cultural imports frm Egypt, but these might have been brained frm Egyptians r Levant people bringing them in as much as the Greeks seeking innovation frm upside. The fcu's here is Athens, also t the pint f exclusion f the remainder f Greece. Sparta's militarism is touched n in contrast t the mre democratic and urbane Athens.
Hw Greek was Macedonia? , Cahill enquires, then dismisses the question. Yet, it was Macedonia Alexander, as Cahill himself nte's, wh extended the "Greek Ideal" further afield than the Athenians could envision. If the reader can recognise that this bk can nly represent a small step toward understanding ancient societies, particularly that f the Greeks, then this bk may be considered a gd start. Although sprinkled with nte's, city marked with Greek letters instead f numbers r asterisks, this is hardly a scholarly effort.
The use and definition f Greek wrd's that migrated int ther European languages is useful, but tedious t transcribe. Its nt clear why the Greek alphabet is included, but the Prnuncing Glossary is truly nly a recapitulating f the "cast f characters" fr which the Index could suffice. The Ntes and Sources are a gd reading list, focusing n recent wrk's where possible. There is n discussion f contending ideas and scholars studying the period here r in the text. A collection f pht's enhances and expands n sme f the text, and the ne map is useful if yu dnt have an atlas.
The author des nt put a particular stress n Greek culture fr the people f this culture did many useful things fr the future development f ur civilization. The Greeks invented everything frm Western warfare t mystical prayer, frm login t statecraft. Many f their achievements, particularly in art and philosophy, are widely celebrated; ther important innovations and accomplishments, however, are unknown r underappreciated. In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Thomas Cahill express the legacy, gd and bad, f the ancient Greeks. Frm the rights f Greek culture in the migrating f armed Ind-European tribes int Attica and the Pelpnnesian peninsula, t the formation f the city-states, t the birth f Western literature, petry, drama, philosophy, art, and architecture, Cahill makes the distant past relevant t the present.
Greek society is ne f the tw primeval influences n the Western world: While Jews gave us ur value system, the Greeks set the foundation and framework fr ur intellectual lives. They are responsible fr ur vocabulary, ur login, and ur entire system f categorization. They provided the intellectual tls we bring t bear n problems in philosophy, mathematics, medicine, physics, and the ther sciences. Their mde's f thinking, considered in classical times t be the pinnacle f human achievement, are largely responsible fr the shape that the Christian religion tk. But, as Cahill pints ut, 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 nly males could be entrusted with the duties f citizenship. The consequences f their exclusion f when frm the political sphere and the social segregation f the sexes continue t reverberate that. Full f surprising, free controversial, insights, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea is a remarkable intellectual adventurecnducted by the mst companionable guide imaginable. Cahill's knowledge f his sources is s intimate that he has made his wn fresh translations f the Greek lyric pets fr this volume.
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Research essay sample on Bk Sailing The Wine Dark Sea Why
