Luck o' the Irish
Thomas Cahill has basically a condensed, one-page, version of his book from years ago-- How the Irish Saved Civilization --in the NYTimes . The article is astounding in the assumptions it makes. Let's take a few of these: Upon their entrance into Western history in the fifth century, they were the most barbaric of barbarians, practitioners of human sacrifice, cattle rustlers, traders in human beings (the children they captured along the Atlantic edge of Europe), insane warriors who entered battle stark naked. And yet it was the Irish who were around to pick up the pieces when the Roman Empire collapsed in the West under the increasing assaults of Germanic tribes. The first assumption is the false dichotomy between "barbarian" and "civilized." "Barbarian" is basically a dustbin category for those "not like us." I hardly think that by contrast the practices of Greeks and Romans particularly marks them out for "civilized." They we...