KING ARTHUR, THE TRUE STORY [Import] [Paperback]

Graham and Keatman, Martin Philips (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Arrow; New Ed edition (1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099296810
• ISBN-13: 978-0099296812
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #186,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding work, impressive style., August 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: KING ARTHUR, THE TRUE STORY (Paperback)

I am a sceptic at heart, and have been disappointed in the past by fantastical works on Arthur and similar themes, so I approached this book with trepidation. My faith in the genre is restored, however. This book is authoritative, accurate in its sources, and assumptions and theories made by the authors are clearly identified as such. Of course this book attracts the epithet 'flawed' - every Arthur fan has his or her own theory that this book will contradict in some way but it is unfair to say that Phillips and Keatman's interpretation of thousand year-old texts in dead languages is less valid than that of any other author, particularly when they go to great lengths (a) to show how they derive their own interpretation, and (b) to present conflicting interpretations that have been made by others but which they have discarded. Above all, this book is scientific - the authors seem to have set out with no theory to justify, just with a genuine desire to follow threads of research as they arise, and they present their findings clearly and stylishly, and without the 'this is the only answer' approach that so many other writers take to the subject.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly interesting detective work, May 23, 2000

By 

Fiona - See all my reviews

This review is from: KING ARTHUR, THE TRUE STORY (Paperback)

Myths and legends span around the life of King Arthur and what the truth really is is hard to tell. Phillips and Keatman did a marvelous job compiling the scarce information available and let the reader participate in how the data was compiled and put in order.

Of all the books I read on the historical King Arthur this is by far the best. If there are errors in their reasoning it might attribute to the fact that not many reliable sources on the subject are out there but so far this is the most convincing attempt at getting the most out of it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars King Arthur's "Secret Identity" unconvincing, January 17, 1999

By 

P. Turner (Irmo, SC, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: KING ARTHUR, THE TRUE STORY (Paperback)

This book makes a clever interpretation of the "Dream of Rhonabwy" story, one of several Arthurian stories in the collection of early Welsh tales called the Mabinogion. The tale is highly critical of the state of Wales in the time in which it was written (circa A.D. 1200); the leaders and warriors of Wales are said to be puny compared to their ancestors of Arthur¹s time. The high point of "Dream of Rhonabwy" occurs when Arthur and Owein of Rheged (modern Cumbria) play a board game - essentially a Celtic form of chess. Owein was a much celebrated warrior in early Welsh poetry for his many victories over the Anglo-Saxons of northern England in the late Sixth Century - about two generations after Arthur¹s time. He thus is a "second Arthur" - another great and victorious Briton warlord. While Owein and Arthur play their game, their warbands fight each other, for no apparent reason. At first, Arthur¹s warband is winning, and Arthur ignores Owein¹s requests that he stop the fighting. Then the situation is reversed, and Owein ignores Arthur¹s requests. (Owein¹s warband, by the way, are referred to as "crows" - after their flag emblem.) The two leaders finally agree to halt the fighting, but by then both warbands are so depleted that they have to call off the Battle of Badon Hill. "Dream of Rhonabwy" is obviously a warning against fraternal warfare: unless the Welsh princes put aside their petty rivalries, then Welsh will never again enjoy a great victory like that of Badon Hill. Phillips and Keatman have correctly seen "Dream of Rhonabwy" as a criticism of Welsh civil wars, but they read too much into it. First, they claim that the Owein of the story is not Owein of Rheged (as stated in the story), but really another Owein who ruled Viroconium (modern Wroxeter) in Arthur¹s time. They also claim that the symbolism of the story is to show Arthur fighting against himself, and therefore that Arthur is thus really Owein of Viroconium: a person about whom almost nothing is known. The quest for the historical Arthur should eschew a pointless search for a "secret identity," and focus instead upon the documentary and archaeological evidence in order to understand the historical period in which he lived.