I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that chance had ordered the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist to the other sect, who believed or pretended to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance has ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
-John Adams to F. A. Vanderkemp, 16 Febuary 1809

Thomas Cahill succeeds on a number of levels in this book.  First, he succeeds in the primary task of the popular historian, making history compelling, and readable and important to our modern lives.  Second, he makes the things we know, and take for granted, seem fresh and marvelous.  Finally, he shows us that even more wonderful ideas and themes lurk just beneath the surface of the history that we all think we know.  The result is a book that confirms our understanding of the importance of the Jews and makes us appreciate them in ways that many of us may not have before.

We well understand the central importance of Judaism to be its monotheism.  A world with many gods offers no guidance for human behavior; different gods may demand different behaviors.  But a single God can command one set of behaviors from us, and is therefore the source of morality, of the morality which can bind an entire society or civilization, eventually the species, to one coherent set of ethical principles.  The one God, a unity Himself, provides Man with the understanding that the Universe is a unity and is governed by a single, unified set of laws and principles.  This is a magnificent thing, and by itself would be a sufficient gift to make the Jews a great people.

But Cahill only even gets to this part of the story after explicating a prior gift, one that is just as important to Man's development : the idea of progress.  Prior to the rise of Judaism, men believed in life as a circularity.  We're born.  We die.  The next generation comes along and repeats the process.  Life has no direction, merely keeps reiterating itself.  Cahill explains that it is only with Abraham and the command of God that he "Go forth from your land, from your birthplace and from your father's home to the land that I will show you." that the idea of life as a journey of discovery is born.  Cahill understands Abraham to be, and makes us understand him to be, our first great explorer, the first human to intentionally set out for the unknown.  Further, he demonstrates how this notion of life as a process or a progression created the very idea of history, of a past that was different than the present,  and the understanding that the future will be different than the present, that the way things are now will eventually be history.  By the time he's done, Cahill may well convince you that "Abraham went" is the most thrilling passage in all of literature.

There is much more in the book, as Cahill attempts, largely successfully, to demonstrate that nearly every single facet of our lives has been shaped by Judaism.  He throws off ideas like a blacksmith throws off sparks, and if some sputter out, many more of them catch fire.  He definitely has some political biases, sometimes welcome, as his determination to show that anti-Semitism is wrongheaded, sometimes less so, as his argument in favor of a kind of gushy social justice.    But the fact that he is so opinionated generally serves him well, and if he sometimes slips into hyperbole, he is never less than thought provoking.   He has a great deal of fun with his topic and you will too.

(Reviewed:06-Nov-01)

Grade: (A-) Orrin C. Judd

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