[blam]

GGG Ping.

[Cicero]

It's odd that Thomas Cahill insists on writing about religion, to which he has always been completely tone deaf.

[Radix]

I read Cahill's book about the Irish, and found it to be a bit dry.

The material was great and the title was brilliant, but the actual book itself was somehow boring to me.

I'll read it again though when time allows.

Meanwhile, this book here I actually had in my hand a couple of days ago, and ultimately I decided not to pick it up at this time.

Perhaps Sunk Civ can link to his review if he has one?

[centurion316]

Time to throw my Carmina Burana CD in the stereo and think of Hildegard and others of her ilk.

When I lived in the Mainz/Bingen area we have several favorite vinters whose families predated even Hildegard. Maybe they were Hildegard's cousins.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
"Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
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[SunkenCiv]

Y'know, it wasn't the Irish book (on tape version), it was "Gifts of the Jews" that I couldn't take. It was something in the cadence of the narrator and some goofy stuff in the discussion of the Sumerians I think. It's been some years...

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Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill

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[Valin]

For those who have an interest in this time period I recomend this. (think Early Middle Ages 101)

Early Middle Ages
http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=8267&id=8267&d=Early+Middle+Ages&pc=History%20-%20Ancient%20and%20Medieval

(24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 8267
Taught by Philip Daileader
The College of William and Mary
Ph.D., Harvard University

We often call them the "Dark Ages," the era which spanned the decline and fall of Rome’s western empire and lingered for centuries, a time when the Ancient World was ending and Europe had seemingly vanished into ignorance and shadow, its literacy and urban life declining, its isolation from the rest of the world increasing.

It was a time of decline, with the empire fighting to defend itself against an endless onslaught of attacks from all directions: the Vikings from the North, the Huns and other Barbarians from the East, the Muslim empire from the south.

It was a time of death and disease, with outbreaks of plague ripping through populations both urban and rural.

It was a time of fear, when religious persecution ebbed and flowed with the whims of those in power.

And as Rome's power and population diminished, so, too, did its ability to handle the administrative burdens of an overextended empire. Fewer records were kept, leaving an often-empty legacy to historians attempting to understand the age.

But modern archaeology has begun to unearth an increasing number of clues to this once-lost era. And as historians have joined them to sift through those clues—including evidence of a vast arc of Viking trade reaching from Scandinavia to Asia—new light has begun to fall across those once "dark" ages and their fascinating personalities and events.
(snip)

[happygrl]

This is from Thomas Cahill's latest, I see.

He is writng a series of books on what he calls the "hinges" of history.

Monasticism is one of them.