The Celts: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #094

by Barry Cunliffe

Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of preconceived ideas and stereotypes.Barry Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people for the first time, using an impressive range of evidence, and exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditions. Along the way, he exposes the way in which society's needs have shaped our visions of the Celts, and examines such colourful characters as St Patrick, Cú Chulainn, and Boudica.ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Archaeology, Ireland, Ancient History, British Literature, Anthropology

184 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 26, 2003

About the author

Sir Barrington Windsor Cunliffe taught archaeology in the Universities of Bristol and Southampton and was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1972 to 2008, thereafter becoming Emeritus Professor. He has excavated widely in Britain (Fishbourne, Bath, Danebury, Hengistbury Head, Brading) and in the Channel Islands, Brittany, and Spain, and has been President of the Council for British Archaeology and of the Society of Antiquaries, Governor of the Museum of London, and a Trustee of the British Museum. He is currently a Commissioner of English Heritage.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

Are the Celts an ethnic group, a geographical term used by Greek and Roman writers, an artistic style, a linguistic group? Cunliffe's answer in this brief, fast moving moving survey is all of these and more. The complexity of the subject is that while everything to which the labels Celt or Celtic has been applied isn't a unified, consistent whole but rather a mess of largely overlapping phenomena, and Cunliffe's artistry is in succeeding in setting that out in an approachable way.

Unlike other volumes in the series this one is well illustrated and also has text boxes which focus on some of the people mentioned in the text in greater detail - but unfortunately these sometimes simply repeat the same information that is in the body of the text.

The key idea is the malleability of Celtisity "The concept of the Celts is an ancient one that has changed with time: the Celts are always being reinvented, sometimes by outside observers, sometimes by the people themselves" (p145). Although one might be glad to observe with the philosopher that one can't cross the same Celt twice, this does led to certain degree of messiness:
*Celtic languages
*Celtic Art (stemming from Hallstat and La Tene cultures)
*A geographical concept of the Greeks and later the Romans meaning people in the west who weren't Scythians
*A particular tribe or group of tribes possibly in the Marseilles region
*Later a people according to Caesar inhabiting one of the three regions of Gaul
*People generally referred to by classical writers as Celts
*A modern ethnonym

In line with this messiness most of these concepts can be expanded and contracted to include or exclude so that under Napoleon III Vercingetorix could be celebrated as an ancestral hero for all France at the same time as Breton language and culture (celtic) were under official pressure.

Celtomania first descended on the Atlantic fringes of Europe in the eighteenth century and the openness of the concept of Celt and Celticness allowed for fraud (Macpherson and his Ossian), invention (Edward Williams alias Iolo Morganwy and his Maen Gorsedd a now indispensable part of the Eisteddfod) as well as scholarship (Paul-Yves Pezron, Edward Lhuyd and Hersart de La Villemarque among others). Their enthusiasm, at times specialised, at times spilling over into broader cultural awareness even among us non-Celts, at times as in the case of Ossian pretending to authenticity, is still with us today and it is a particular strength of Cunliffe's account that he does go from prehistory to present within 145 pages finishing with issues of independence, devolution, cultural survival and change.

In his introduction Cunliffe mentions how he was contacted by a reader of an earlier work who wrote in thanks saying that his life fell into place when he realised that it was ok to be an alcoholic because he now understood that all the ancient Celts had been famous for their drinking. The story illustrates the power that stories and heritage can have in our own lives to give definition, meaning or simply comfort even when as this book makes clear the past has a complexity that has more to offer and be explored.

As an aside on the mythology I was interested to read that there is so far an absence of chariot finds in Ireland even though chariots feature in the Celtic stories written down in Ireland. At the same time chariot finds are well known in Britain and France, are mentioned by Caesar while chariots don't feature in any surviving legends or folklore from those regions. I imagine chariots are much more impressive in legends and stories than in everyday usage when you might be faced by broken axels, damaged harnesses, horses running low on hay and the expense of getting insured if you were a young charioteer - life is easier in stories.

[NAT.orious reads ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 STARS ★★★✬✩

This book is for you if… you seek an introduction to the field of Celtic Studies or need a refresh. It’s certainly not revolutionary for even laypersons who’ve already busied themselves with what archaeology and anthropology might label Celtic.

⤐ Overall.
I'm always getting so nostalgic (in lieu of a better word) when reading on of these books. And also a bit angry. You know that feeling when you're typing up a review and fully well know there might be actual backlash? That's the reason I didn't rate nor review the bible at all because I didn't want to have lengthy pointless conversations with people trying to 'save' me or whatever. So here goes nothing... One of the moments I dislike institutionalized Christianity/religions, in general, the most is when I read about cultures that are lost because the White Christian/dominant religion couldn’t just stay put and leave others be. Noo, you had to go out and do ‘missionary work’ and ‘spread the word of god’ aka forcing your beliefs onto others by means of violence, thereby eradicating valuable cultures. It's especially problematic for minority cultures with little written traditions. – I said what I said.

Overall, this was a highly informative book that lays out the basics (aka most of what we know) of what science might label Celtic. Barry offers a well-structured overview that pays special attention to the discrepancies between what people and the modern media think Celtic is, and what we – from scientific evidence – might be able to label as Celtic. I didn’t find myself quite as intrigued as I did with Alice Roberts’s The Celts . There wasn't much new information for me - obviously - but I can absolutely recommend this for beginners and those who would like to reimmerse themselves intoCeltic Studies.

‘The creation of cultural identities in the Celtic-speaking countries has, understandably, depended upon nurturing languages. But minority languages have a natural tendency to die out. This is true of the Celtic languages. The last Cornish speaker died in 1777. Manx is no longer spoken except on certain ceremonial occasions and the others are under threat in spite of a growing desire to nurture them.’

⤐ The book is structured as follows.
List of all illustrations

1 ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN
2 A VIEW FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN
3 A LITTLE PREHISTORY: THE ATLANTIC LONGUE DURÉE
4 A LITTLE MORE PREHISTORY: THE ELITES OF MIDDLE EUROPE
5 PEOPLES ON THE MOVE
6 TALKING TO EACH OTHER
7 TELLING STORIES
8 SHARING VALUES
9 GAULS AND ROMANS
10 BRITONS AND ROMANS
11 INTERLUDE: THE STORY SO FAR
12 THREADS OF CONTINUITY: THE CELTIC TWILIGHT
13 REINVENTING THE CELTS
14 STRIVING FOR IDENTITY
15 EVERY NIGHT A FEST NOZ: THE NEW CELTOMANIA
16 SO, WHO WERE THE CELTS?

Further Reading
Index
_____________________
writing quality + easy of reading = 4*

structure = 3.5*

enjoyability = 3*

insightfulness = 5*

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cunliffe the writer is very persuasive and as an archeologist he is hesitant to speculate beyond what can be verified by the extant physical record. He allows the citations of written sources but keeps a certain distance between himself and their conclusions. This is the first Very Short Introduction I have read and it was due to Cunliffe that I made the effort. Cunliffe doesn't believe there was a vast unified Celtic world in prehistory. He thinks it is possible perhaps likely that it was more of generic term the way my neighbors slur "foreigner" or "A-rab". He does believe there was a vast network of Atlantic coastal activity in the fourth and fifth millenniums BC, this was facilitated by trade and each argot would borrow words thus creating coherent if limited language amongst disparate people. Cunliffe broaches this idea in The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek and I suspect it will be the thesis of Europe Between the Oceans: 9000 BC-AD 1000 which coincidentally I bought with bated breath a few hours ago while conducting my Sunday shopping.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year I'm studying Celtic mythology along with the r/mythology-in-a-year subreddit. This is the first book in the curriculum (I'm already a little behind). It is a nice overview of who the Celts are and how historians determine which ancient groups qualify as "Celts". It was kind of eye opening to see how much of history is really just BS-ing. Everything is so uncertain.

But anyway.... This book is sort of interesting, but I do think the author could have made the material more entertaining. For someone who is VERY interested in Celtic culture, this is probably too broad and simplistic to be of interest, and for someone who has only a slight curiosity, I don't think this book will encourage them to dig deeper. But if you're in that sweet spot of not really knowing anything about the Celts and also having a strong desire to learn something about them, this is a good place to start.

[Michael Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve read several of Cunliffe’s books on cultures of the European Bronze and Iron Ages and have enjoyed both what he has to say and the engaging style with which he says it, but this 150-page volume is somewhat confusing. He seems to start off with the declaration that there’s really no such thing as “the Celts,” that they were an 18th- and 19th-century invention. Mostly a product of the Romantic era, and any modern scholar who says otherwise is wrong. Then he spends one-third of the book tracing the development of this false history. Then he jumps to historical surveys of those people generally classified as Celts: the Britons, Bretons, Welsh, Scots, Cornishmen, and Irish -- while still maintaining that they weren’t any such thing. Only the original inhabitants of central and western Gaul, he says, are entitled to be called that -- and then only because they were “Celtic-speakers.” Finally, he inveighs at length against the use of the “Celtic” label as a political tool in the devolutionary efforts of modern-day nationalists. Cunliffe is entitled to his position but that’s not what this series of concise surveys was meant to be. I think he was simply the wrong choice as author.

[Lucy Barnhouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cunliffe wears his impressive expertise very lightly in this engaging introductory survey to a complex web of historical and cultural questions. He treats linguistic, archaeological, and textual evidence very thoughtfully, and very lucidly. I'll be using sections of this with an undergraduate class, and it's clearly designed -- without a hint of condescension -- for the general reader. The educated lay audience has sometimes been referred to as a chimera, but Cunliffe writes for this semi-mythical public with confidence and good humor (and as a specialist in a different period of history, I learned a lot, and was impressed with his clear explanations of methodology.)

[Dustin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compact bit of high-level scholarship, taking good advantage of current thoughts about how historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence work (and don't work) together. He has an interesting angle, too - emphasizing the Atlantic coastline and its watershed as a cultural diffusion zone. I also appreciated his take on the transition from Hallstatt to La Tène material culture; he suggests a plausible set of socioeconomic circumstances that could have been in operation. 4 stars!

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a fair bit despite the academese and the overall shapelessness of the book. It felt like the professor cobbled together a bunch of his lecture notes while hungover. Not an enjoyable read at the prose level, but yes, informative.

[Jim Reddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like three books in one. I found the middle chapters titled “Gauls and Romans,” “Britons and Romans,” and “Interlude: the story so far,” as well as the final summary chapter, the most interesting. The first half was written in a style that was too academic and dry for me and the last few chapters on what “Celtic” means today didn’t hold my interest. The Further Reading section at the end looks useful.

[Flávio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book focuses less on the Celts as a historical people and more on how ‘Celtic’ identity emerged as a constructed idea over time. While I had hoped for deeper insights into the art, religion, or social structures of the Celtic tribes those aspects are barely touched upon. The writing is sharp and well-researched—just not the angle I was looking for.

[Gayle Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this little gem, Barry Cunliffe teases out the threads of Celtic heritage with concise language, good storytelling and a strong emphasis on the latest facts and research. The illustrations are terrific, and the final chapter draws everything into a nice little package. If you are only going to read one book about Celtic history, I highly recommend this one.

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

To the early Greeks, the Celts are barbarians living in the Western Europe (Iberia, Gaul, and source of the Danube). The only thing that united these people is the broadly similar language, later called Celtic. Around 5th century BCE, a group of elite emerged from the Celtic speaking region. From them (referred to as the la Tene culture) a belief and value system emerge, together with a distinctive style of art.

From the 4th century BCE onward, there is close contact of trade and warfare between Graeco-Roman world and the Celts. They are called variously Keltoi, Caltae, Galli, etc. Julius Caesar spent years incorporating Gaul into the Roman Empire. The control of the Romans gave some people new identities and language. There were also migrations and exchange throughout the centuries. On in the remote region of the west (Scotland, Ireland, Wales, etc) did the Celtic-speaking people remain largely unaffected by disruptive events.

The vision of the Celtic people started in 18th century fed into the nationalism of the 19th. But these people didn’t really think of themselves as one nation (as far as scholar can tell).

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does what the title says - give a short but comprehensive overview of Celtic history, along with how it's been viewed and reinvented over the centuries.

In some ways the most interesting thing about Celtic history is how it's been constructed from scant evidence and how that's been reinterpreted at different historical moments. This book does a good job at being an entry point for further reading and is a breezy read to boot.

[Elentarri · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting, scholarly and rather superficial introduction to the Celts. The author focuses more on trying to identify what "Celtic" was in the past and what it means today, than in describing Celtic culture, history or language. The book was ok and provided "a very short introduction" to the subject matter, which is about all you can expect from this book.

[Emile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great general overview for people with limited knowledge of the 'celts'.

Reads easily and is very digestible while maintaining a strong academic perspective throughout.

Would recommend for anyone interested in the subject.

[Tori · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry and poorly organized. Not a map to be seen. The last summary chapter was the best by far. Still, presents interesting information in a compact package.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is, indeed, a very short introduction.

This introduction, however, covers a great deal of ground. There is a nice history of the meaning of Celtic, essentially. How connected are the countries that are considered Celtic now? Answer: Not very, at least not for a very, very long time. This is bringing to a more popular audience what has already been known and discussed in academic circles for a good long while. Celts don't exactly exist. Not really. Or at least, not in the way that the public commonly assumes that they do.

This is a look at the history of those countries as well. A study of how the common conception of Celtic came to be, and what it might mean moving forward. There's a look at how different groups are seeking to reclaim their heritages as well, which is a refreshing thing to read about, and would be even better to more greatly see.

A good read, if a rather dense one.

[Peter Bayuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

A text book compacted into a 150 page book. Fascinating topic, but I had some issues with how Cunliffe handled the topic. He didn't really have an argument, any structure, or any coherent narrative. Sure, I learned a lot but in the end I was left exactly where I started in many ways. The archaeological view point the book used was too limiting and it felt like it left a great deal out. I would call this more notes than an introduction, but what do you expect from an Oxford professor. Cunliffe didn't really seem to take the reader into account when writing this work.

[Alys · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and readable introduction to Celtic origins, history and identity. The only criticism I have is that it focused too much on Ireland and Brittany with little on the other four Celtic nations. E.g. the Ulster Cycle had pages and pages dedicated to it yet I don't think the word "Mabinogion" ever featured which grated on me a bit as a Welshie.

[Ryan McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and engagingly written. Lost a few stars because I feel like it could have been structured better (but thank god it's not my job to structure nonfiction books).

[Annie Yotova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Celts, Gauls, Galatians - different names, used in different places and at different times, but they all mean the same - a population of peoples who rose somewhere in Central Europe during the Neolithic and then dispersed in all directions, mixing with local populations, creating separate groups and ending up as a mystery for most of the world. Some of these names indicate a single group, some of them are more generic but a lot of ancient authors used them interchangeably at one time or another and there are archeological and other evidence to support the connection so we know that group existed. But who they were? And why Central Europe when everyone knows that these are Western European (and British Islands) people? Well... about that... popular culture and actual history have a different opinion on these.

There probably was no better author for this book than Cunliffe - while not everyone agrees with him on every topic, he is an archaeologist who spent spent his life excavating the English countryside (apparently there is more to it than murders and mayhem as the crime authors will make you believe) and writing extensively on Iron Age Britain and Europe. Which is where the Celts come into the picture - they match his period.

The story he tells has multiple distinctive parts - from the first remains of the peoples, to the development of what will be known as Proto-Celtic language (that's one of the topics where a lot of the current scientists disagree with him - where did the language arise actually: the book explains his theory on the topic although it does mention that there are other theories - but then what can you do in a book of 145 pages), the dispersal of the tribes which made up the initial centers and their mixing with the locals they found elsewhere (all of that seen mainly through pottery - pre-history and early history deals with a lot of pots). But then as time progresses, the authors of the classic period start mentioning them (well, not always in a very nice light) and more and more artifacts start pointing to the history and how it goes (they even made it into the Bible as the Galatians, following one of the known dispersal waves to the East).

And they kept moving and mixing; somehow managing to keep their legends and a language group alive (and somewhat well with four continuously living languages (Breton, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh)) - and the linguists can say a lot about these movements because of how the languages developed and are used today. And that's where it gets a bit convoluted because the Celts of these ancient times had mixed so thoroughly with everyone that these days the Celts are defined as the speakers of the Celtic languages -- which makes the question of where these languages developed and how they dispersed a very hot topic indeed.

Once Cunliffe is done with the pre-history and the Roman empire, things get even more complicated in his narrative because more and more people are moving across Europe (and the British islands), displacing populations, mixing with whoever they find and pushing the old inhabitants (some of which were once the new ones) to the corners. Probably one of the most ironic fact around the whole situation in the middle ages is that it was Julius Caesar's "The Gallic Wars", republished in 1469 and made public in Venice in 1511, that reminded everyone of the whole Celts/Gauls situation, which led to histories that were not rooted into the Bible and the emerging states of Western Europe started using that history to write their own histories - and the ancient Celts and Gauls showed up back on the map - reinvented and adding the stamp if secular antiquity into the story of the new nations. Cunliffe gives an overview of how that developed in the 16th century and beyond, leading to the current Celtic mania - from books in Latin early on through the universal histories which followed them to the first festivals and congresses of and for Celtic culture to the early 21st century where "Celtic" art and culture is everywhere - not always meaning the same for everyone and not always connected to the historical roots of the peoples.

So who were the Celts? That really depends on why you want to know that - the answer may surprise you anyway you look at it.

The one thing I really disliked about the book is that Cunliffe forgot that he was writing a short book. So every few (short) chapters, he will have an "interlude/review" chapter which added almost nothing new (it did some synthesis but... as dense as the text is, there is just not enough material to require that). But that is a minor gripe.

As usual, there is a "Further Reading" section, which is heavily curated to include mainly works in English with lengthy bibliographies (and skipping the "lunatic fringe").

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

As my professor said, while this may say that it's "A Very Short Introduction", it's really "a deceptively long introduction". It wasn't necessarily the most exciting historical work that I've ever read (it was a bit dry) but it did pack in a lot of useful information.

[Daniel B-G · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dreary, ponderous, dull. Every time I opened it to read I soon found myself drifting off, rereading, finding nothing was said, making a bit more progress, drifting off, rereading, still finding no information ad infinitum. This should have been a quick read but it was like wading through treacle.

[Kathleen O'Neal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This topic could have been dealt with much better by someone interested in more than simply archeology. The VSI editors should have found a better person to write this book.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad this was so short because every time I picked it up to read I felt like I'd been struck with a horse tranquilizer

[Richard Brooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always been interested in the Celts and ancient British history. I am even more so now because I've married and Welsh woman, and recently had a daughter. So my daughter is half-Celt. :-)

To be honest, I wasn't looking for reams of detail, which is why I was attracted to the "A very short" part of the title. I just wanted a quick, whistle-stop tour, easy-read to introduce me to some key categories, concepts, dates, etc.

Barry Cunliffe is a proper academic, and this book reads like a pretty dry academic work. Rather than saying "These people were the Celts", it takes a more academic approach, arguing that it's problematic to define a particular grouping as Celts, etc. Barry Cunliffe is a Professor of Archaeology and Ancient History, so it reads like a slightly dry evaluation of the evidence for different perspectives, rather than a more plain-speaking reference book.

This isn't to slag it off. I'd say it was a good book and did justice to the topic..... But just isn't exactly what I was looking for. It's like the book gives proper, considered, "grown up" answers to my probably very misconstrued/naive questions, and so for that I can't really fault it.

I was just looking for something less academic and dry, and more plain-speaking and accessible....

So if you're interested in the Celts, and are happy to do proper historical/academic, then this is probably a book you'd really enjoy; but if like me you just want something very top-level and simple, then you might find this book a bit on the dry side.

[Hugolane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have enjoyed several books in the Very Short Introduction series and this no less. It did what it set out to do bringing together older scholarship alongside more recent arguments. The gap between the reality of who the Celts were and the modern myth of the Celts is made plain again and again. That said, it seemed to me that is so often the case, the Welsh were given short shrift. The persistence of Welsh even before the language laws of 1967 struck as deserving some discussion relative to Irish and Scots. Also, it would have been nice to have discussed the relationship between the Celts and "Old Europe" a bit more directly. While Cunliffe talks about well developed trade patterns going back 5,000 years and the spread of an "La Tène" elite culture, it would have been nice to relate that to the findings of genome research that link Britain and Ireland to Iberia and the specifically the Basques. Those are small quibbles, however, that in part reflect my own prejudices and my lack of experience writing a Very Short Introduction.

[Jason Ray Carney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an insightful read. It lays out the the way Classical literary and historiographical sources define the Celts. It contrasts that definition with the archaeological and philological record. It examines how later folklorists (and nationalists) invented and exaggerated the idea of Celticness. It also considers the significance of the idea of Celtic identity, and it speculates about its value from a quasi-sociological perspective. It is a VSI, so there is more breadth and less depth, but Cunliffe doesn't reproduce mere mythology about who the Celts were here. Something that really intrigued me was his claim about the important role the Christian monastic tradition (and its associated art styles) played in consolidating a cohesive Celtic cultural identity: more than other influences, monastic Christianity, Cunliffe argues, "gave these Atlantic communities their identities" throughout the 5th and 8th centuries." AD. If you want a serious and brief account of the Celts, this is for you.

[Duncan Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned quite a lot in a very short period of time reading this book. Having very little prior knowledge of the topic, I found it very interesting and may have learned and picked up facts that may have seemed basic or unoriginal to others.

However, I did feel myself getting somewhat confused with the narrative/line of argument throughout the book. I feel like it could have been slightly more fluid. I also think the author could have been slightly more engaging with his prose, although he was fitting a lot into a small book. I also found it adequately engaging anyway as it was all new information to me, as previously mentioned.

I feel (although I can't say for certain, yet) that some other longer books on the topic dealing with slightly more specific areas may be a slightly better read. Therefore, I will definitely be reading more from this field, and as this has been prompted by this book, I suppose you could say it has provided a good introduction, leading me on to the meat of "Celtic Studies" in the future (using the helpful bibliography provided perhaps).

[Brian Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another interesting Very Short Introduction, as I work through the university library catalogue. This time, leading archaeologist Sir Barry Cunliffe provides a general overview of his specialism of Celtic prehistory.

Considering how much furore there has been about trying to redefine the Celts, Cunliffe manages to take a solid middle ground by exploring many different areas, such as classical writings, archaeology, linguistics, and folk cultures. The one glaring omission is genetic studies, but hopefully a revised version will include that.

As a general overview it works well, though some sweeping historical statements grated, simply because I've already read more deeply in those areas, though a casual reader is unlikely to notice.

Overall, another strong book from the Oxford Very Short Introductions series.