Sailing The Wine Dark Sea

[Snow]

Just finished Sailing the Wine Dark Sea - Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill, Doubleday 2003

The books is part of Cahill's Hinges of History series which includes:
-How the Irish Save Civilization
-The Gift of the Jews
-Desire of the Everlasting Hills (about Christianity)
-and 3 future volumes

Cahill is a superb author with a fine-tuned prose, a sense of humor and an intimate familiarity with the material he writes about.

No other society can match the accomplishments of the Greeks, they were and are without equal. The litany of fascinating gifts is matchless

-The Illiad -
[i]Rage -- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son of Achilles,
muderous, doomed, that cost the Acheans countless losses,
hurling down to the HOuse of Dath so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' soul, but made their bodies carrion,
feast for the dogs and birds[/b] - amoung the greatest words ever written - and all that 3000 years ago.
-The Odessy
-Democracy
-Warfare and conquest
-Greek Mythology
-Socrates
-Plato
-Aristotle
-The Stoics
-The Epicurians
-Architecture (still followed today)
-Dance
-Drama
-and on and on and on.

For my money there's nothing more intersting than history and this book is well worth the price.

Besides - it's only 300 pages so you can get through it fast.