The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics)

	Title: The Ancient Celts Purchase Item Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics) List Price: $21.95 Our Price: $13.39
Customer Reviews:
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) History Buff
This is a great book. After reading many books on Roman history, I am now obtaining an expanded perspective of the world in which the Romans formed their empire. The material is well-researched and presented. I wish I could find other books of this high quality. The maps and pictures of art are amazing. A small personal thing: I like to visualize where this history is occuring in terms of modern countries. This author is apparently reading my mind and tries to help me out.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) Mostly an archeological textbook
Although this book has a lot of interesting information and photos, it it so tediously written and so focused on specific archeological finds that it was very disappointing overall. There was very little "overview information" about the Celtic lifestyle. If you want a lot of archeological detail this book is for you. But if you are looking for a more general book with information about the Celtic lifestle you will never make it through this textbook-like work.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) Good photos bur disappointing contents
The pictures are beautiful, showing many unusual pieces, but the content is often only school-book level, with little in-depth analysis or contextualizing. I found myself wishing for more information, and a deeper, more serious treatment of the cullture, the beliefs, and the everyday life of the people.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) Stop Right Here!
If you are wondering what to read about the Celts, with little previous exposure to the subject, then you only need to know one thing: "The Ancient Celts" by Barry Cunliffe. In fact, forget about this review and just buy it now, it is that good. I am not joking! Go. Now. Why are you still reading??? Since you persist, you will find "The Ancient Celts" to be a thorough going introduction to most aspects of Celtic research and history. Cunliffe gives a broad overview of previous Celtic study, the sources and the different influences and prejudices that have wormed their way into the sources and works through history. This provides an excellent back-drop to Cunliffe's own book, and puts it into an historical context of scholarship. For the Celts themselves, the book presents broad overviews of different aspects of Celtic society, culture, art and so on. This is necessarily brief and focuses on those Celtic peoples who are amply attested to. For those others who dwelt more on the fringes of Celtic territory, Cunliffe is rightly more cautious in the few conclusions he draws. Despite this, the treatment is reasonably detailed and will certainly give you enough to go further should you wish to do so. This might sound a bit puerile, but another bonus for me was the ample supply of photos, pictures and diagrams that helped put a more visual facet on the text. One might think that this is a pretty banal comment, but I found it a real boon to be able to see the artifacts that Cunliffe refered to, and appreciate them for myself. The Celtic art was a classic example of this. For those with little geographical knowledge of Europe, I have only one quibble about the book: the paucity of maps. Cunliffe uses a few geographical features, like rivers, which are less than famous. A map or two would have been fantastic for placing events in their proper location. This is just a small point which does nothing to detract from the book in its entirety. While there are other authors out there, I would agree that Cunliffe has achieved possibly the best introduction available on the Celts. If you have not already got it ordered, I suggest you do so now. It is a great book and you won't regret the purchase.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) A Very Interesting Book, Serving to Build a Good Foundational Knowledge of Our Celtic Heritage.
For anyone wanting an understanding of the Celtic people, Cunliffe's "The Ancient Celts" is an excellent introduction, as well as a fine review for those with a foundation in Celtic history. Cunliffe gives us a picture of the Ancient Celts from 1300 BC forward. The Celts had a most fascinating and expansive culture, dominating much of Europe up until the time of the Roman conquests. Following the Roman conquests of Europe and the Celtic lands, Celtic society faced the onslaught of Christianity which crushed some of the Celtic culture and absorbed other parts thereof. Still the spirit of the Celts survives even today... for those that know where to seek it. As a student of Celtic Theology, I found Cunliffe's chapter on `Religious Systems' to be most interesting, but as Irish scholar Proinsias MacCana has described it Celtic religious beliefs are a "fertile chaos". There is a wide array of material reflecting the beliefs of the Celts, all of which offers us insight into their spirit and none of which fully explains it. Still, Cunliffe has done an admirable job in his explanation thereof in "The Ancient Celts". Caesar (in "Commentaries on the Gallic War") writes that the Celts were extremely superstitious. This may be the case, but I feel that what Caesar calls superstition is nothing more than the `faith of the Celts'. One never sees superstition in one's own religion, only in the belief and practices of others. Within the Celtic society religion was mediated by the Druids. These were the Celtic priests, but much more than mere teachers of religion, the Druids were the keepers of knowledge of the Celtic people. Also within this religious class were the `Faithi' or the seers ~ those who were inspired by the Gods to understand the `otherworld'. Today the Celtic religious festivals survive in the forms of Samain (Halloween), Imbolc, and Lugnasad to name but a few. These and other rites were officiated at by the Druids. I believe that the `path of the Druid' and an oneness with nature is an essential element for those who would learn the way of the Celts. Although we tend to think of the Celtics as being centralized in the British Isles, it is important to note that the Celts established settlements across Europe into even Western Asia. Furthermore, it must not be forgotten that the Celts served to slow and curtail the expansion of Rome. Cunliffe's "The Ancient Celts" reveals the Celtic people to be of a poetic / warrior society which contributed greatly to the development of the soul of the European nations of today. Even today in television advertisement (for travel to Ireland) we see Ireland being described as a land of warrior-poets. In a warrior society the way of the warrior contributes to the development of religion and religion contributes to the morality of the warrior. This combination of warrior ethos and religious faith make for greater equality within the society itself. Cunliffe states: "Women clearly occupied a more significant position in Celtic society than they did in the Greco-Roman world..." Women in the Celtic Society have had a good deal of input into the development and working of that society, and this shapes the society in ways that are simply not present in a purely male-dominated society (i.e. Arab-Muslim society). It is also interesting to note that although Celtic society may have been overshadowed by both the Romans and later by the Christian Church there is still a strong Celtic influence in modern society. Overall, I found Cunliffe's "The Ancient Celts" to be a very interesting book, serving to build a good foundational knowledge of our Celtic heritage.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) Product Description
The archetypal 'barbarians from the north', the Celts were feared for their ferocity in battle and admired as skilled craftsmen. For two and half thousand years the Celts have continued to fascinate all who have come into contact with them. "The Ancient Celts" presents an absorbing account of the tribes whose origins and identity still provoke heated debate. Exploring the archaeological reality of the Iron Age inhabitants of barbarian Europe, Professor Cunliffe traces the emergence of chiefdoms, patterns of expansion and migration, and the development of Celtic ethnicity and identity.
The Ancient Celts by Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon.com Review
Each generation, the British scholar Jacquetta Hawkes has observed, chooses the archaeology that best suits its current ideology. For a century beginning in the late 1800s, archaeologists depicted the Celts as an inordinately brave and poetic tribal people who battled their way across the Eurasian world without being unduly aggressive--in the manner, that is, of good colonialists. Today some archaeologists are more inclined to consider the Celts as a people who kept ethnic unity alive across a huge span of territory and time, a view that may offer comfort in a time when, as Oxford University professor Barry Cunliffe writes, "ethnic divisions are becoming a painful and disturbing reality." Cunliffe himself takes the view that the Celts were at once alike and diverse, which led to the formation of many different Celtic cultures from the Black Sea to Ireland. This heavily illustrated, well-written book tells their story well, from the beginnings of Celtic culture in the distant Indo-European past to the height of Celtic power in the third century A.D.