Thomas Cahill

The New York Times bestselling author of How the Irish Saved Civilization reveals how the innovations of the Renaissance and the Reformation changed the Western world. • “Cahill is our king of popular historians.” —The Dallas Morning News

This was an age in which whole continents and peoples were discovered. It was an era of sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also...

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today. On visits to the great cities of Europe--monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable...

While the majority of Europe was in war-torn upheaval, the scribes and monks of Ireland were busy recording and preserving the written history of the world. In their preservation, they recorded not only great Christian works, but also the words of pagans, Romans, and Greeks. When peace and stability reigned anew in Europe, these scribes were instrumental in once again spreading knowledge and education throughout the lands.