Reviews for How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

The average rating for How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe based on 2 reviews is 1 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-03-11 00:00:00 Karen Freimark Mind-numbingly written, building up to a nearly inconsequential conclusion on how Irish monks might have helped preserve some of Europe's classic literature. I'm descended from the Irish and was looking forward to a little nationalist pride, but this failed by underdelivering from its title and being nearly unreadable from the first chapter. It hurts even worse to hear that the claims may have been false.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-01-09 00:00:00 Stephen Kobak This was awful. Many reviews say things like "charming" and "pleasant," but I thought it was tedious and meandering. Not all history has to be chronological; there's interesting stuff in here but it's too long with details of Roman society. Also, the author writes like a blow-hard, and interjects things like "Alas!" and "Dear Reader" and "It is up to the reader to decide." That kind of stuff irritates me to no end. Searching for info online, I found references that refute much of what the author posits, including info about St. Patrick. Granted, the author (in tedious and blow-harded notes) acknowledges that no one can say exactly what happened, but he's disguising mythology and folklore as truth.