The Atlantic Celts

by James, Simon

• ISBN13: 9780299166748
• ISBN10: 0299166740
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-14
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

The Celtic peoples hold a fundamental place in the British national conscious-ness. In this book Simon James surveys ancient and modern ideas of the Celts and challenges them in the light of revolutionary new thinking on the Iron Age peoples of Britain. Examining how ethnic and national identities are constructed, he presents an alternative history of the British Isles, proposing that the idea of insular Celtic identity is really a product of the rise of nationalism in the eighteenth century. He considers whether the ;Celticness ; of the British Isles is a romantic, even politically dangerous, falsification of history, with implications for the debate on self-government for the Celtic regions of the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Preface	7	(2)
Introduction	9	(6)
1 The debate on Celtic identity	15	(11)
2 Standard histories: assumptions, limitations and objections	26	(17)
3 How the Celts were created, and why	43	(24)
4 Current ideas on ethnicity, and the insular Ancient Celts	67	(19)
5 Towards a new ethnic history of the isles	86	(50)
6 Conclusion: are the modern Celts bogus?	136	(9)
Glossary	145	(2)
Further reading	147	(3)
Bibliography	150	(5)
Index	155	(5)
Illustration acknowledgments	160