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Summary
Summary
What has become of the Celtic peoples whose culture once spanned Europe from the Atlantic to the Black Sea? does the current faddish interest in Celtic nationalism, music and arts signal the beginning of a revival for Celtic communities or is it the last flicker of a dying culture? Award-winning author Marcus Tanner has journeyed throughout the Celtic world- from the wilds of northwest Scotland to the Isle of Man, from Brittany to Patagonia, and from Boston to Cape Breton-seeking to discover the Celtic past and what remains of authentic Celtic culture today.
Weaving together extensive historical research with first-hand observations of Celtic people in far-flung communities, Tanner finds that talk of a Celtic revival is largely misplaced. He describes the fading prospects of those who have maintained a Celtic identity in the face of powerful pressures to assimilate. Despite great public interest in all things `Celtic', the threats to the world's remaining Celtic communities, their language and their culture, are relentless. A distinct Celtic identity may not survive, Tanner fears, and such a loss would impoverish us all.
Author Notes
Marcus Tanner was Balkan correspondent of the London "Independent" from 1988 to 1994, and subsequently the paper's assistant foreign editor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
"[T]here is nothing that the British or the French love more than a good old Celtic revival," writes Tanner. But the recent renaissance of interest in all things Celtic is "vacuous," he continues, a mere mask for the rapid disappearance of genuine Celtic culture in the British Isles and Brittany. In this lively book, which is part travelogue and part social history, independent historian Tanner (Ireland's Holy Wars) records the results of his world travels in search of the remaining vestiges of Celtic culture. As he moves from Scotland and Belfast to Wales, Cornwall and Cape Breton, he discovers that English has replaced Celtic languages and that modernization has erased many of the remaining Celtic rituals and practices. He provides not only a portrait of modern society in flux in these regions but also a picture of each society's rich history. Tanner finds that Celtic music has become the vehicle for preserving the distinctive features of the Celtic past, although some musical spectacles that purport to preserve the culture, such as Riverdance, are more faux Celtic than the real thing. Tanner particularly laments the disappearance of such languages as Welsh, for without a living language, proverbs and other sayings that preserve a people's folkways are lost forever. This thoughtful book provides a very different, less optimistic perspective on today's Celtic revival. Agent, Natasha Fairweather at A.P. Watt. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Choice Review
Tanner, author of Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (CH, Oct'97, 35-1062) and Ireland's Holy Wars: The Struggle for a Nation's Soul, 1500-2000 (2001), addresses the state of contemporary Celtic culture and identity in this comprehensive and consistently interesting book. Clearly written for general audiences, Tanner's style is energetic and fast-paced. He combines first-hand observation with a synthesis of extensive historical research to examine the past and present of Celtic communities in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, as well as the Celtic diaspora in Cape Breton and Patagonia. In all cases, Tanner concludes that little remains of authentic Celtic culture; that the current popular expressions of "Celtic" music, art, and religions are largely inauthentic; and that the prospects for survival of the remnants of language and identity are very dim. The dominant themes that Tanner stresses in explaining the rapid decline of Celtic culture, especially over the last two centuries, are religious change, the impact of dominant nation-states (Britain and France), and modernization in general. The quality of the author's argument is at times undermined by an angry sarcasm, but the book is timely and should be read by those interested in modern Celtic history and the current Celtic revival. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. C. W. Wood Jr. Western Carolina University
Library Journal Review
Drawn to pursue his roots, Tanner (Ireland's Holy War) learned Welsh to read gravestones while hunting his ancestors, an exercise that blossomed into a cause. Dismissing popular music and Riverdance as poor substitutes for true Celtic culture, as reflected in the language, he tracked each dialect's history by traveling throughout Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Normandy, and more isolated pockets where versions of the original Celtic tongue linger and occasionally thrive. Alas for Tanner, he found few people using Celtic as their primary language-over the centuries, church and state have combined to suppress what was seen as a barbarous dialect. Even in Ireland, where Gaelic is taught, it isn't well retained. Most ironic is the situation in Protestant Ulster, whose Celtic roots could bind it to the rest of the island had so much history not ruined things. Though he concedes that culture can survive in some form without its native tongue, he wonders how much culture is lost as a language dies out. At once personal and well researched, this book is worthy of consideration for academic and public collections.-Robert Moore, Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, N. Billerica, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
