Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #185655 in Books
• Published on: 1983-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 232 pages

Customer Reviews

Informative but dry
Certainly not an introduction, or something you read in a day or start reading and can't put down, but it contains a powerful ammount of information of the Celts, particularly focusing on social structure and pagan religion. Lots of good photos, often depicting torques and other ancient Celtic treasures.

Oldie but a Goody
For starters, this book will be celebrating its golden anniversary in three years. Originally published in 1958, it was reorganized two decades later (posthumously, from the author's standpoint) for the Ancient People, Ancient Places Series. The material has NOT been updated or revised, although more pictures were added, and Stuart Piggott graced us with a new Preface.

This is NOT an ideal first book on the Celts, as it is dated and some of the ideas seem ambiguous and/or unsubstantiated; however, I would highly recommend it as supplementary reading to someone who has already been well immersed in the subject matter.

The book is well-illustrated and full of photos. Powell has some fascinating viewpoints and brilliant insights, even tackling the terms 'Celt', 'German' and 'Teuton'. The book is fairly easy to read, although there is a density of ideas that sometimes requires a re-read of various paragraphs.

On the down side, however, the author sometimes seems to be 'away with the fairies' in that not all of his insights are well substantiated, either within the book or outside of it. He over-generalizes in some places, not specifying which Celts or of when he is speaking. Simply put, Celts living near the Rhine in 500 BC are not identical to British Celts in 500 AD; generalizations are rarely appropriate for this long-lived and widespread 'group'.

Powell does 'show his age' by abusing the comma in ways that are no longer allowed in proper writing form. He plays the 'Name Game', where all words that look or sound similar must have some causal link.

Celtic mythology is not his strong suit, as he struggles to make his case for a possible triplicity link for the Dagda and Lug; earlier in the book he refers to the Morrigan as "the Queen of Demons", definitely an interpretation made from a Christian standpoint, and not quite appropriate to the subject material.

This book desperately needs revision. A clear chronology would work also.

Before buying this one, you should probably consider Ronald Hutton's "Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles", Peter Berresford Ellis' "The Celtic Empire" and "The Druids", Barry Raftery's "Pagan Celtic Ireland" and even A.F. Harding's "European Societies in the Bronze Age".

Poorly written, paragraph-long, run-on sentences
I have just put down this difficult read. While Mr. Powell is clearly knowledgable,in this book he has enjoyed an orgy of complex, disjointed sentences that make his subject a frustration to follow. This book is a series of: paragraph-long sentences, interrupted by multiple commas, and the clauses they introduce. It is like reading a book poorly translated from another language. I get the impression that he is one of those revered old professorial types, in love with their own thinking

processes and voice, and out of touch with their audience. I strongly urge Mr. Powell to refresh his English writing skills. His style is horrible archaic and unnecessarily alienates the reader.