Customer Reviews

The Celts: A Lucid and Fascinating History

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Nora Chadwick is probably cited by every book on the Celts published since 1970. A lot of work has been done since then in archaeology and linguistics. Chadwick's view of the Celts is therefore a bit dated. She doesn't even examine Celtic architecture and technology in very great detail. It is now generally accepted that the Celts had a profound impact upon Roman technology and culture. The Romans didn't simply evict the Celts, but rather absorbed entire populations in Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. Each absorption brought something new to the mixture. Each absorption drained the rich world of Celtic development of further resources. And current research shows that Chadwick's treatment of the Romans in the British isles is quite inadequate.

This book is best considered as an introduction to the profound reconsiderations of Celtic history and prehistory which the late 20th century produced. Modern scholarship often attempts to extend Chadwick's work, but sometimes invalidates it. Her book was profound and evocative in its day, but it is now little more than a testimonial to the state of Celtic research a generation ago.

I've heard a lot of criticism on this work: that is is confusing, jumbled, and out dated. But I personally have found it helpful in my studies, and enjoyable to read. However, for someone very new to the subject of the Celts, I'd recommend "Exploring the World of the Celts" by Simon James, instead.

The book is fairly comprehensive, commenting on the many sub-groups of the peoples contained in the word "Celtic". But herein lies the biggest flaw, in my opinion. It is all very well to recognize the Gauls, Galatians, Welsh, and Picts as Celtic, but there are differences in these groups that may have been overlooked too casualy in Chadwick's work. I've learned all too well, in the process of my own studies, that we cannot correctly assess certain characteristics as generally Celtic, nor can we judge one sub-group of the Celts by another. To do so is simply incorrect. We may make educated assumptions about the social structure of the Britons based on, for example, recorded i nformation from from Gaul, but this will not neccisarily be true. We can't assume that all Celts fought in mortal combat at feasts because Posedonius tells us that is a practice of the Gauls. And I think that this type of assessment is too common in Chadwick's work. Nevertheless, because I'm capable of picking instances like these out, for the most part, I wasn't hampered by the work.

Anothe criticism of this book is that it is fairly unorganized. One paragraph may be talking about the Dalriadic Scots and next about the Welsh under Roman rule. In this sense, I wasn't able to use the book much for quick references, and I found myself knee-deep in only somewhat relevent information when looking for specific information.

My last criticism of The Celts is the near total lack of citations and explanitory footnotes. I'm not fond of taking information on the author's word alone. Although, I suppose this is a fualt rather in the dating of the book, typical of other works put out in the same age. That does not excuse the many times I came to be asking myself about the source of the information Chadwick had given.

Despite my criticisms I did find the book enjoyable, easy to read, and helpful. It is more the type of book I'd pick up to read to brush up, rather than the type of book I'd pick up for reference or for details on a specific subject. The most thourough and well explained chapter in the book seems to be "The Celts in Europe". The intro by Barry Cunliff was also a nice addition.

This is an excellent single-volume book on the Celts. It provides a great overview from prehistory on. I have enjoyed it so much I'm on my third reading. This new addition should add even more readers to it's admirers.

Nora Chadwick gives us in this book an essential vision of what the Celts were. A great civilization, extremely advanced in crafts and arts, with a fully developed mythology of gods who were the masters of these crafts and arts. She gives us all the details she can find on this civilization : their level of development and any kind of metal work and the rich social order that went along with it. Dynamic agriculture, rich arts, a lot of commerce, great crafts and a religion that was based on those social values. Just for this reason, this book is essential. She should have insisted on the Celts' great underdevelopment as for warfare when confronted to the Romans. They were all warriors but were not able to fight against a professional army. They were individuals fighting to defend their own communities not mercenaries fighting to conquer and to loot. Some more recent research has been done on the Gauls and has revealed how those warriors were preparing for war. They were trying to build some unity through rites that made them share their most intimate feelings and fluids. A lot of research has also been done on the position of women showing that they were the doctors of this civilization, and hence were not reduced to a secondary and minimized status. They were full members of their society. This civilization was not mizogynistic, or phallocratic and certainly not homophobic. Their religion was also a set of rites that made all members of the society equal. Unluckily, the Romans, and even the Mediterraneans (Phenicians, Greeks and Romans) conquered them first through some commerce and then through military force. They destroyed this civilization and reduced it to slavery. And that was only the beginning. Christianisation was performed ruthlessly and all the culture, the arts, the mythology were destroyed by being forced into Christian rules. It is emblematic to see how the first christianisation of these people was destroyed later on to stick to the new Roman augustinian ideas, which meant a second deprivation of their culture by purifying the first Christian faith they had adopted of all the remnants or recollections of previous Celtic heritage. Some will say history cannot be repaired. Sure. But we must note that our Western civilization lost a tremendous amount of inspiration and human depth by this brutal colonialization. The Celts were dedicated to human and visionary values that we have lost. The Celts were dedicated to a real cult of nature and total respect for it. We are presently reinventing this respect for the natural environment. But we have to do this because the Mediterraneans destroyed it some twenty centirues ago. What a waste of time ! What a waste of energy ! Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

There are a lot of good things about this book. It also has some flaws. For example the presentation and organization of the book could have been better. All of the same I consider it a good introduction. Chadwick and Cunliffe are two of the greatest living authors of Celtic history today and this book it certainly is head and shoulders above many of the books on the Celts out today that are full of misinformation and tall tales.

Recommended to the beginner.

Nora Chawick (1891-1972) spent most of her life studying Celtic (or, modern conveyance, "Keltic") history. She wrote many books and articles on the topic and also delivered numerous lectures on the subject at renowned univesities throughout Great Britain.

For a work of non-fiction, this is a very fluid read. The subject is compelling and, here, Chadwick has given us a full account of pretty much all that is known of this fascinating culture of people. The Celts essentially displaced and or assimilated into the indigenous culture(s) of Ireland. They originated in Europe and their eventual migration(s) to the Emerald Isle is still, to a large degree, a subject of endless study.

Chadwick yields this essential history in terms and text that we can all follow. She punctuates her account with numerous bits of Celt trivia, such as: "...human sacrifice among the Celts, although of great ritual significance, may have been practised [Eng. sp.] more commonly at times of communal danger or stress, rather than as part of regular ritual observance."

Other interesting tidbits are more generally about Ireland and the today's Irish people who ultimately emanated from their ancient ancestors: "Irish ballads, unlike those of the rest of Europe, are hardly ever related in the third person... (the influence of "speech poems").

My 1997 college thesis, for which the university awarded me a second-place spot for "Thesis of the Year," focused upon the Celts. I relied heavily upon Chadwick as one of about 40 sources for that monograph and her coherence and credibility helped me greatly to see that voluminous project though to its successful conclusion.

Anyone can read this book and come away with both an enhanced knowledge of a little-understood culture and a general gratification for having read a brilliantly competent work of non-fiction.

The pictures are fine. But, this is a dated, poorly cited book. The chapters are choppy and incoherent in spots. There is no flow or chronological synthesis to this volume. Footnotes and a larger bibliography may have helped her case. The Celts were never a civilization. The word itself comes from the word for city.
Even archaeology magazine stated these tribes did not have cities.

The positive rev's of this book are grasping at wet straws.
Stephen Oppenheimer, Bryan Sykes, Malcolm Chapman, Simon James, and John Collis have all written far more well researched books that detail the Celts as an 18th century creation of the Romantic movement.
Neither this or even the far better Celtic books written by Barry Cunliffe have disproved the 5 authors I mentioned.

In recent decades the Celts have been the most overomanticized, overated, and written about people of the ancient world. Is it a coincidence that their followers have often demonized the other peoples of the ancient world to bolster the sagging image of this half mythical people?
At least Miss Chadwick spent little time doing that. I give it 2 stars.