Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter


Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
16
Narrator
Release Date
July 2003
Duration
7 hours 38 minutes
Summary
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.
Reviews
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Ignatz

Cahill does not usually disappoint. His works are a credible addition to academic history and worthy of study. This is an early book and perhaps his attitudes have changed over time. It is a wonderful reprise of the legacy of Greek poetry, literature, theater and history. Unfortunately for some unknown reason Cahill injected some anachronistic political conclusions into the final chapters and adds a rather bizarre interpretation to Pericles Funerary Oratory that is rather trite. I also disagree with a female voice as narrator, but that may be a personal eccentricity. Still and all I wouldn't have missed this.

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Anonymous

Olympia Dukakis gives a striking reading for this audio program which spans the Greek Classical Age from the Dark Ages through to the dawn of Christianity. Her correct pronunciation of Greek names combined with an obvious interest in the subject shines through the sometimes simplistic prose of Cahill. Overall a very good audio program.

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