Desire of the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill

Desire of the Everlasting Hills is the third volume in the Hinges of History series by Thomas Cahill. This unique presentation of Jesus and his times is for believers and nonbelievers alike (for Jews and Christians, it is intended by the author as an act of reconciliation). With the same lively narration and irresistible perceptions that characterize How the Irish Saved Civilization* and The Gifts of the Jews*, the author invites readers into an ancient world to commune with some of the most influential people who ever lived.

About The Hinges of History series:

"In this series, The Hinges of History, I mean to retell the story of the Western world as the story of the great gift-givers, those who entrusted to our keeping one or another of the singular treasures that make up the patrimony of the West.  This is also the story of the evolution of Western sensibility, a narration of how we became the people that we are and why we think and feel the way we do. And it is finally, a recounting of those essential moments when everything was at state, when the mighty stream that became Western history was in ultimate danger and might have divided into a hundred useless tributaries or frozen in death or evaporated altogether. But the great gift-givers, arriving in the moment of crisis provided for transition for transformation and even for transfiguration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found."    -----  Thomas Cahill

For me, Thomas Cahill's ability to retell these periods of history is a gift for Western history.

*These two books were mentioned in an earlier post of September 2016.