Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter

In Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, his fourth volume to explore "the hinges of history," Thomas Cahill escorts the reader on another entertaining--and historically unassailable--journey through the landmarks of art and bloodshed that defined Greek culture nearly three millennia ago.

In the city-states of Athens and Sparta and throughout the Greek islands, honors could be won in making love and war, and lives were rife with contradictions. By developing the alphabet, the Greeks empowered the reader, demystified experience, and opened the way for civil discussion and experimentation--yet they kept slaves. The glorious verses of the Iliad recount a conflict in which rage and outrage spur men to action and suggest that their "bellicose society of gleaming metals and rattling weapons" is not so very distant from more recent campaigns of "shock and awe." And, centuries before Zorba, Greece was a land where music, dance, and freely flowing wine were essential to the high life. Granting equal time to the sacred and the profane, Cahill rivets our attention to the legacies of an ancient and enduring worldview.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Anchor Books
Published: 07/27/2004
ISBN: 9780385495547
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 8.08h x 5.28w x 0.74d

Review Citations: New York Times 10/17/2004 pg. 26

Accelerated Reader Quiz #/Name: 78456 / Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
Reading Level: 10.5 / Interest Level: Upper Grade / Point Value: 15