DWD's Reviews

Published in 1999 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of Doubleday. The Desire of the Everlasting Hills  is the third book in  The Hinges of History Series  by  Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  Nearly 20 years ago I read this book and the second book in this series,  The Gifts of the Jews   and then parked them on a bookshelf. I never read more books in the series and simply forgot all about them. With the pandemic quarantine came a purging of the bookshelves and these books returned to the to-be-read pile.  Overall, I enjoyed The Gifts of the Jews , despite some slow spots. I had high hopes for this book because I thought it would fit in well with the strongest parts of its predecessor. But, I found this book to be a mostly plodding history with an absolutely excellent and inspiring last chapter attached to it.  And, I have solved the mys...

  Originally published in 1998 by Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books in 1998. The Gifts of the Jews is the second book in The Hinges of History Series by Thomas Cahill.  It is a series of histories that look at important long term movements in history that helped create Western Civilization.  I read this book when it was first published and I placed it on my shelf and did not touch it for more than 20 years. Over time, I remembered it as  remembered it as a dense tome and continued to keep it on my shelf  as more of a trophy to my ability to read through difficult books than for any desire to go back and consult it or even re-read it. That changed when we stuck at home during the pandemic quarantine and we came to realize that our extensive bookshelves were overwhelmed and a purge was in order. This book was "purged" from the shelves, but went in to my to-be-read pile after I leafed though it. I don't know why I remembered this book as hard to read. Cahill has a real g...