The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51 [Paperback]

Peter Berresford Ellis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 9, 2001

European recorded history north of the Alps begins with the Celts. At their height, they stretched over the ancient world from Ireland and Britain to Turkey and Czechoslovakia, from Belgium and Gaul to Spain and Italy. They sacked Rome, invaded Greece, and even attempted to take over the Egypt of the Ptolemy pharaohs. Yet theirs was an empire without an emperor, a civilization that encompassed the continent but had no central government. To tell its history, Ellis matches his storytelling talents with the firsthand and classical accounts of the Celtic empire.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Carroll and Graf Publishers; 1st edition (September 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786709332
• ISBN-13: 978-0786709335
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Our Forgotten Heritage, March 16, 2002

By 

J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51 (Paperback)

Peter Beresford Ellis cheerfully admits to a degree of hyperbole in the title of this excellent survey of Celtic history. There was no "Celtic Empire" as such, and no centralized Celtic authority, but this people, the aboriginal tribe of Europe, occupied the continent from its fringes in Iberia and Ireland all the way to central Anatolia. As such, they formed the foundation stock of the modern Irish, Welsh, Scottish, English, Bretons, French, Swiss, Austrians, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as contributing their bloodlines to the Italians, Balkan peoples, Turks, and even Germans and Slavs.

The Celts had an overwhelming cultural impact on the formation of modern Europe, but it is an impact which is shrouded, due to the Roman domination of the Celts around the time of Christ. Most European rivers have Celtic names (the Danube, the Don, the Dnieper, and the Donets are all named for the Celtic river-goddess Danu; and the Rhine and the Rhone both are named from the Celtic word for "valley").

Unfortunately, the Celts abjured writing in favor of human memory, so that, as their cultural nexus dispersed so did their learning and lore. Hence, we know relatively little about these people, the ancestors of many of us of European background. What we do know is often distorted, or plain wrong, written by Greeks and Romans, the latter (particularly Caesar, in his "Gallic Wars"), setting out to deride the barbarians seen as only fit for conquest.

Ellis tries mightily to lift the veil in this book. He has a fine appreciation for his subject, and if he makes the error of sometimes casting his Celts as "noble savages," replete with democratic thoughts and ways, he can be forgiven for doubting the Roman histories.

Given the relative lack of written primary source material, and the enigmatic messages of archaeological ruins, the book is necessarily too short, and reads as the quickest thousand-year history in print. It's still an excellent effort to bring these people, so long in the darkness, back into the light.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Suitable summary and introduction to the material, June 30, 2004

By 

J A W (Norman, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51 (Paperback)

This is a history of the Celts and their political and military doings (particularly in relation to Rome), not an analysis of Druid mythology or Celtic mythology. If you want that, you'll need to find another book, which Ellis probably authored. The focus of this book is more narrow, and cultural issues are set aside in favor of Roman-Celtic relations. Attention is given to the Celts and their alliance w/ Hannibal, the militarization of Roman society in response to the Celtic frontier, and of course Julius' quests to sieze Gaul and Britain.

We tend to think of the Celts as limited to Northeast Europe (ie Ireland), yet Ellis dispells this pop cultural myth and documents that the Celts were very prominent--and historically influential--in Iberia-Galacia, even Asia Minor. The Galatians were the first Celts to accept Christianity, and Paul's epistle to them is one that greatly influenced early Christian relationship to Judaism and the Torah. The book only lightly touches upon the Irish Celts, but this is still a good book for the Irish-ophile to learn more about the spread of the Celts across all of Europe.

30 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Shallow Fiction. Where Is The Archeological Proof?, February 13, 2006

By 

Truthful History-You Are All Writing Using Th... (The Unknown Realms.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51 (Paperback)

This is the worst book I've ever read on ancient history. The author minimizes the negatives of the so-called Celtic culture, while portraying the Greeks and Romans as the destroyers of Western Civilization rather than the FOUNDERS of it. Throughout this revisionist tirade he presented no proof of his claims.

In reversing the archaeological and written records he wants the credulous reader to believe that the various tribes that are lumped together under the false Celtic umbrella somehow built the world we now live in. I don't know how this rubbish got published? I recommend any books by Michael Grant, Adrian Goldsworthy, B.H.Liddell Hart, & John Collis' " Celts: Origins And Re-inventions" as a truthful balance to this nonsense.