How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe

How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe is a popular history by Irish American author Thomas Cahill, published in 1995. The book argues that Ireland’s conversion to Christianity was instrumental in preserving the remnants of classical culture that survived in Western Europe after the Roman Empire’s demise. The book was on The New York Times Best Seller list for two years, and there are 1.3 million copies in print, according to the author's web site. Cahill earned degrees in classics and philosophy and studied Greek and Latin, which equipped him to work with historical primary sources (documents produced during the period under study).

The book received widespread praise from the popular media upon publication but was criticized by academics. For example, historian Lisa M. Bitel wrote in The Catholic Historical Review, “I cannot begin here to list all the misread texts, over-simplified historical constructs, and biases of this book, but can only kindly suggest that it is not meant to be history, but hagiography. It is, pure and simple, a traditional legend of saints" (Bitel, Lisa. Review. The Catholic Historical Review, 1997).

This study guide refers to the 1995 edition published by Doubleday with ISBN 0-385-41848-5.