Customer Reviews

Celt and Saxon

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A gritty, covincing history lesson on what really went down all those years ago. A scene setting eye opener that lays it all out in place and time. von Eschenbach, de Troyes, Charlotte Guest, Monmouth et al wrote some ripping yarns, but Peter Berresford Ellis is the bloke for me - now all it's going to take is finding a long lost replacement for a piece that's now out of of print

Peter Beresford Ellis's book gives the initial impression of a scholarly and thorough treatment of his subject, but its unpleasant political undertones eventually become clear.

He claims that the Anglo-Saxons waged a war of extermination against the people of Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire. He attributes a unity and aggressive purpose to a haphazard series of Germanic migrations, that is simply not borne out by the evidence presented. Indeed, his accusations against the English people border on racism. He misses the point that the British imperial drive has its roots in Norman, not Saxon history; the record of the Normans in the Mediterranean and the Holy Land are evidence enough of this. It is a shame that such a potentially important book should be ruined by predjudice.