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| Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Hinges of History) | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Cahill
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $3.95
You Save: $11.00 (74%)
New (41) Used (48) from $3.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  69 reviews
Sales Rank: 22861
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 0385495544
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.09
EAN: 9780385495547
ASIN: 0385495544
Publication Date: July 27, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: May contain marks or highlighting. Ships within 24 hours M-F. Tracking information emailed upon order shipment. All orders ship via USPS. May NOT contain free publisher supplements, i.e. Infotrac, PowerWeb, or CDs. 30-Day Money Back Guarantee!!!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Excellent overview of Greek Civilization May 28, 2005
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
The author accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do: introduce the breadth and importance of Greek Civilization. He does this by beginning with Homer and then includes chapters on art, politics, expression, war and other topics, showing the influence of Greeks. This is not encyclopedic history. Many important events are not covered or are mentioned cusorily. But, at the end of the book you are left with an overall sense of wonder at the Greeks and a desire to know more. And exactly what more could you ask for in a small book on an ancient and foreign culture?
Strengths of this book are the overall gestalt left by the author. He includes complete texts like Pericles funeral oration and many smaller fragments of other works illustrative of some aspect of the Greeks. His selections, while necessarily limited to keep the book short, are simply wonderful. His take on various works may be debated, but then so what? This makes for interesting reading and thinking, and isn't that why we read? Take for example Homer's Iliad. Cahill sees it as pointing out the nastiness of war. You may disagree but if you have ever read the whole Iliad (and not just the excerpts in your survey of literature textbook) I don't know how you could come away with any other view. (That the Greeks may have viewed this differently is open to debate) Chapter after chapter of Greeks and Trojans murdering each other most graphically and then robbing the body of its armor. Page after page of limbs hacked off, blood spurting and spears through various body parts in great detail leaves you numbed in the end. Petty fights over who gets to rape the captured women first and who gets the best seat at the table go on and on. How could anyone interpret this work otherwise would be more my question than why Cahill interprets the Iliad this way.
I admit I would tear out a few of the pages of pictures of homo-erotic art, but Cahill always includes sexuality in his books. His first "Hinges of History" book "How the Irish saved Civilization" (a better book, in my opinion) left me with the impression that Cahill wished to see Irish Kings copulate with white mares in public once again, just like in the good old days. Ignore these parts and enjoy the rest and you will be well served.
Cahill also juxtaposes ancient history with modern politics and war. You may feel that Cahill disparages the current political leaders. So what? Read and think anyway and you will still be well-served.
Overall, this is an excellent overview and will serve to pique your interest in a neglected area of education. It will also be informative and opinionated. Can't wait to see what Cahill writes next.
 Lighten up already May 20, 2005
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
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.
Wish I could read Greek April 13, 2005
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Maybe 4.5 stars. I am not a history scholar - picked this up recently and enjoyed it a lot. My wish is that I could read Homer in the original ancient Greek. Never thought that before - and this is due to Cahill's passionate writing. It is not a history textbook - don't buy it for that reason. But it gets you thinking and feeling about what it must have been like to live in those times. Frankly, my knowledge of ancient Greece is very limited, so I am sure that determined the value I got from this book. This is the first book by Cahill I have read and I am excited that there are many others in this Hinges series.
Enlightening, entertaining and left me hungry to know more. March 11, 2005
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
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.
 Sailing the Shallow Straits December 27, 2004
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This study of the ancient Greeks and their imprint on western civilization is easily the worst of Cahill's hinges of history books. While his study of the Irish and Jesus of Nazareth pique the imagination, here Cahill plods through the Greeks well-known accomplishments and begins with a totally uninsightful examination of the Greeks at war. He concludes that all peoples fight one another -- wow, the scales fall from the eyes! How about comparing the warring Greek city-states to rival European nations of the modern era, with Parisians somewhat analogous to Athenians and Prussians a modern equivalent, at least militarily, of the hardcore Spartans? Cahill's descriptions of Greek art are interesting, but oddly the book features overabundant photographs of prurient content, of leering satyrs and symposia turned carnal, all of which suggest that the art of our cultural forbearers was almost exclusively obsessed with copulation. The imbalance tends to obscure the Greeks equal if not greater love for the pastoral and quotidian.
Cahill loves to shock. All of his thought-provoking books contain short phrases, interspersed in scholarly passages, that are especially designed to rock back the reader. The style and effect are amusing if used in moderation. In "Wine Dark Sea" he simply goes overboard and at times just seems bufoonish. The editorializing in the discussion of Pericles, where the author heaps much undeserved praise on John F. Kennedy and perhaps prematurely and unwisely takes a swipe at America's military adventures in the Middle East, compromises attempts at historical analysis. That said, Cahill is provocative and therefore a hard habit to break. While an inferior introduction to the mighty and erudite Greeks, this book at least gets a reaction, maybe even nudging further exploration of its sea deep subject.
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