The story of how Irish scholars preserved Greek and Roman classics, Jewish and Christian writings, and other writings that might have otherwise been lost when the Roman Empire collapsed.

A fresh look at the impact of Jesus & early Christianity on the shaping of Western civilization.

After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today. On visits to the great cities of Europe--monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable...