Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter

by Thomas Cahill

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization takes us on a journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.

"A triumph of popularization: extraordinarily knowledgeable, informal in tone, amusing, wide ranging, smartly paced." --The New York Times Book Review

In the city-states of Athens and Sparta and throughout...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385495544
• ISBN13: 9780385495547
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

This is my Greek reference book

There are so many great segments of this book. It is a complete education in each part. I can pick it up anytime to re-llearn the things I thought I knew. It is better than a humanities course in college. A quick answer for so many questions. I just keep it on hand as a reference for most things Greek.

Cahill's Erudition is a Pleasure

Most educated people have some idea about the important contributions the Greeks have made to Western Civilization. We usually learn of their deeds in a hodge podge fashion. We learn about Pythagoras in Geometry Class or Socrates or Plato in an Introduction to Philosophy class. We know the Greeks are important but most of us know this in a scattered sort of way. The beauty of this book is that Thomas Cahill gathers all their many varied contributions and distills them into one very well written single volume. I am sure there are other books that do the same thing. I would also doubt if there are any great scholarly breakthroughs in this book. However, what makes this book special is Cahill's talent as a writer. He has all the erudition and confidence that one associates with an Oxford or Cambridge don. It is good to know that the United States can produce such a well rounded and talented generalist. This book was a great pleasure to read. Highly recommended.

Lighten up already

I almost didn't purchase this book after reading other customer reviews. So glad I took a chance. It's interesting that this book incites such emotional and critical responses. It's not meant to be an encylopedia or a text book on ancient Greece. As Cahill explains in the introduction, "you will find no breakthrough discoveries, no cutting-edge scholarship, just, if I have succeeded, the feeling and perceptions of another age and, insofar as possible, real and rounded men and women. For me, the historian's principal task should be to raise the dead to life." In my opinion, he succeeds beautifully in SWDS. Comments from reviewers regarding excessive time spent on eroticism and sex seem more a reflection of those readers own inhibitions and filters. After reading those reviews I thought this was going to be XXX-rated. Maybe in Victorian England, not in the present. Discussions of sex were more limited than expected, and sex is, afterall, an essential component of cultural mores and critical to understanding how ancient Greeks lived life. So lighten up already. My advice is don't be put off by these negative reviews. SWDS is a great read, enlightening, entertaining, and well worth the time. Thank you, Thomas Cahill.

Enlightening, entertaining and left me hungry to know more.

Take it from one of the masses. I listened to the Olympia Dukakis-narrated CD version during a long night-time trip on interstate highways. To be honest, I use such opportunities to broaden my literary experience with books I might not be disciplined enough to pursue during my bubble-baths. Having limited knowledge of the classics but lots of curiosity, dating back to high school and my fascination with antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I think I am fully qualified to call myself one of The Masses. For the first time, the story of the Illiad came alive for me as more than a yellowing tome to be labored through as an assignment. After decades of suspecting there was a real adventure there, I was fascinated and delighted. I was sorry to see it end. Nothing but gratitude from this humble corner, to Thomas Cahill for talking to me and not down to me; and to Ms Dukakis for a wonderful performance as narrator of the CD.

Putting it all together

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!

Highly Accessible History

Thomas Cahill's Hinges of History series has illuminated several corners of history for the general reader, from medieval Ireland to the development of Judaism and Christianity. Now Cahill has turned to the ancient Greeks to demonstrate why they are important today.In a series of several chapters written in scholarly yet accessible to the general reader style, Cahill skillfully dissects Greek history, philosophy, drama, and morality. He shows us the Greek origins of many of our ideas about government, literature, and art, and ends with a chapter that demonstrates the intersections between the Greeks and the Judeo-Christian ideas which came to dominate so much of the world. Like the other volumes in this series, Sailing the Wine Dark Sea will entertain and inform.