Customer Reviews

Who Were The Celts?: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Celts 1000 B.C. to the Present

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was the first book on Celtic history I read when I began developing an interest in the subject. It is easy reading and I learned a great deal about who the Celts were, but I did have some problems with the organization of the book. For the most part, it is in written chronologically. But various aspects of religion and culture are mixed into the "general" history in some odd places at times. The author also jumps from topic to topic pretty randomly within the same chapter. Sometimes he seems to repeat himself in different parts of the book, and I felt I was reading the same thing in one place that I had in another. I also wish the religious aspects were discussed in more detail and that is was clarified which Celts believed in what gods, rather than lumping them all together. Overall, I do think this is a good introductory book on Celtic history. It is written to the laymen and discusses all the major aspects of the Celtic people. But it is not as comprehensive as some books and the subjects are sometimes disorganized.

This is one of the most readable history books I've ever had the joy of reading. I know I have some Celt in my viens, but more NAI. (A true American.) This Mr. Duffy has done his homework. Starting back in Eastern Europe in the Millenium before the "Current Era" he brings forward a sturdy, life loving, self sufficient people who were for the most part, non aggressive toward their fellow men. The Celts as prestented, didn't take to being bullied, they liked to entertain well and did. They were apparently the first civilized people to really respect their women as equals. Many early gods were of female character. They have a history of the love of words, music, arts in metals, gallantry on the field of battle. At the heart of many inventions and customs of the civil world lies a Celt idea. I liked it!

This small volume is a great introduction to Celtic history. I didn't expect much of it, but it turned out to have great pictures and illustrations, especially of Halstatt and LaTene excavations and a wealth of interesting examples.

It reads fast, being mostly an introduction, but it might be just the thing for friends and family who know nothing at all about the Celts and want to learn more. Its written in a engaging style and is a very easy read that is also educational.

This was an immensely readable and enjoyable book. Had I learned about the History of the World in such a universal manner as a child, I would have gone back to the History books time and again to find out more about the times and the peoples of the world that are referred to in this book. Thank you Kevin Duffy, I consider you gave me a gift....

I didn't want to know much about the Celts at all, just one particular thing for my dissertation. This book was easy to read and actually answered my question - which was a miracle - because I read a lot of other books and couldn't find the info I needed. Hats off to Duffy.

This book is a jumbled, disorganized, mess. And to top it off, it displays an incredible number of historical flaws, particularly in regards to the Romans. The author appears to try his hardest to denigrate the Romans at the expenses of the Celts and seems to assume that his readers haven't bothered to read Livy, Polybius, Appian, Plutarch, Caesar, or other ancient writers.

I'm not a big admirer of Caesar and the Romans; however, I believe history should be presented in an honest and objective manner. This book did neither.

In my opinion, the book was a waste. Other writers have done a much better job of presenting the world of the Celts. Save your money.

This book was a disappointment. As an Irish American, I wanted to learn a little of my ancestors. What I got was a book that made some wild assumptions. When the author stated that the Taureg nomadic people of North Africa may be related to the Celts, I nearly fell off my rocker. The Taureg are the deepest black and to try to relate them to the Celts, well that was quite interesting. In this book, the author aims some sharp jabs at the Romans, British, and the English royal family including Prince Charles. I think those comments also may have been uncalled for.
I learned a little about the Celts, but I think I may have to read The Celts by Nora Chadwick to get an objective view of the Celts. For those who want a more objective view of the Celts, read elsewhere.

Subtitled as "everything you ever wanted to know about the Celts 1000B.C. to the present" it is packed with information and could have been a good book - with a different author and a better editor. It is flawed in two respects. Firstly it is written very simply - great if you are eight but a bit lacking in meat for an adult. It reads rather like a high school term-paper (the author is a film maker and not a historian).

Secondly, and very annoyingly, the author uses the subject apparently to massage the egos of Irish-Americans (or perhaps his own ego) and vent an obvious hatred of the British. This means the text is packed with hyperbolae verging on the inaccurate, and irrelevance. For instance is your quest for things Celtic satisfied by information such as "Today there are Scots who, in a free elective process, would not have voted the English Queen Elizabeth II's Greek born husband, Philip, to lead a royal life in London at taxpayer expense as the duke of a place called Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland" - Highly irrelevant, and inaccurate in that it fails to recognise that Elizabeth is Queen of Scotland since James the VI of Scotland acceded to the throne of England and became James I of England too, and the comment about Philip being Greek even verges on the racist? Or how about "In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of engineering degrees earned in the Republic of ireland, with a 63% increase in computer science degrees" - wtf??? If you are adult seeking a history of the Celts, not a supporter of the IRA, and a discernining reader, find yourself something better.

This is, as a previous reviewer noted, a nice introductory history to the Celts. It covers a lot of aspects of Celtic life and history in a broad, general sense. Interestingly, is goes beyond necessity and covers a good bit of Roman history as well - in excess of what is needed to address the Celtic/Roman interaction. That said, the Roman history part is still interesting. As another person states, the organization of ideas lacks a bit, but my main problem with Duffy's work is that while he points out the biases of classical historians such as Tacitus, he writes with blatant bias, himself. The text is littered with descriptive elements concerning how Caesar "smugly" writes this or so and so "proudly" does that. While his opinion of classical motives may or may not be true, I am nonetheless irritated at having to identify Duffy's personal points and read beyond them in order to gain a fuller, unbiased analysis of history.

[...]As a professional writer I found the book to be rather redundant, with the author returning to scenes and repeating facts that had already been covered more than once. Because he is a documentary film maker, and a good one, that may be the cause of that. Repeating scenes can be an effective visual device, but it is distracting in a book. However, the early history of the Celts and their widely established culture, covering most of modern Europe, was a real eye-opener for me. But, as I intimate in the title of the review, the last half of the book concentrates on the history of the Celts in the modern British Isles, though that history is well-covered. But a comprehensive history of the Celts would need a book five times the size of this one to do it justice. But this book is a good place to start from.