The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everybody Thinks and Feels.

Publication: CLIO

Publication Date: 22-JUN-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Indiana University, Purdue University of Fort Wayne

By Thomas Cahill. New York: Nan A. Talese, 1998. xii + 291 pages.

This book is important for several reasons. First of all, it offers a controversial and stimulating interpretation of the history of Western thought. Second, in a world where anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic literature have proven regrettably tenacious, this book stands out as a dramatic and comprehensive tribute to the Jewish people, their history and literature, directed largely at a popular readership. Aside from Biblical scholarship or studies of esoteric aspects of Jewish mysticism, it is somewhat rare to find a work praising the Jewish cultural contribution to Western Civilization, even rarer to find such a work so broadly targeted. Not that the book is without serious flaws, especially from a scholarly perspective. In fact, like Cahill's earlier volume, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe (1995), this book may be as interesting for what it tells us about the place of historiography in contemporary popular culture as in its stated purpose.

Anyone familiar with the history of Western Civilization is obviously familiar with the persecutions aimed at the Jewish people and their cultural legacy. It would be fair to...

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