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Excellent.

Revisado: 01-02-23

A short podcast that packs in a lot of information. Looking forward to Luke's book.

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Excellent

Revisado: 01-02-23

This is great. It packs in a lot of information in a short amount of time and is very interesting.

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Wish I'd read more reviews before getting this

Revisado: 09-03-22

I just assumed any low rating of this book was because of racists. But this is a very bad work of scholarship with many factually incorrect statements and information that is cherry-picked to prove a thesis. I didn't realise how bad it was until I came across a review by Fred Schleger. Look it up. I learnt more from that review than from this book, so that's something, right?

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great way to start learning about the Celts

Revisado: 02-13-22

Start with this audiobook if you want to learn about the Celts. I've listened to Barry Cunliffe's The Ancient Celts, and a good chunk of Kenneth Harl's Rome and the Barbarians. Both have their pluses and minuses, but this book is definitely the most interesting and I feel like I get a much better overview of the topic.

If you want to further your knowledge, then listen to the other two titles I mentioned. Cunliffe gives more detail on the ancient Celts, whereas this book has one chapter on the subject at the end. However, you will feel like you're having random facts thrown at you and it is more disorganised in how the subjects are grouped. Harl gives more information about the effect Celts had on Rome, but there is also a lot of Roman history that you could maybe skip (and you will get shouted at by the author).

However, both these authors put great stock in Roman descriptions of who the Celts were, even though these sources clearly had some bias. The author of this book has much more skepticism towards these sources which is refreshing. He also provides a lot more information about the Celts on the periphery of the ancient world, like Britain and Ireland, and uses the surviving Irish literary texts passed down through the centuries to help interpret who the Celts might have been.

All in all, I think each had its own merit, but start with this one.

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It's okay I suppose

Revisado: 02-11-22

Somehow the author has taken the most uninteresting parts of Celtic study and made an entire book out of them.

It starts with some general information and then heads into the various theories people have had about the Celts through the centuries. If you're writing a paper about this very specific topic, then great, but I'm not interested in knowing about a theory someone in the 1500s had about who the Celts were that was then disproven a few hundred years later. I don't need to know about the various wrong theories people had in the 1800s in minute detail, that again, were disproved a century or so later.

Then you just get a whole lot of facts about individual tribes, cultures, beliefs and languages thrown at you. All are explored in minute detail. This information is given chronologically so you keep going back and forth between what seems like dozens of different tribes, with no hope of memorizing who they all are and where they are and their mini-migrations and the development of their own particular language, customs, art etc. It would be great to give a much broader view of this, because it is interesting, just not delivered in this way. Occasionally there might be an interesting tidbit mentioned like passage graves or dragon-headed torcs, but these interesting things are sprinkled into a whole lot of recitation. You just feel like you're having facts spat at you for hours on end.

The author also makes a great many assumptions about how the Celts lived and states these 'facts' with authority, when the reality is we just don't know. For example, he seems to prescribe a lot of deep symbolic and religious meaning to objects and practices, without any proof. He talks about iron fire dogs used as spits to roast meat, and prescribes deep religious and symbolic meaning to them being decorated with bull heads. I mean, they cooked beef on the spits. Maybe they just thought it was pretty and a reference to what the spit was used for? It could have had religious and spiritual meaning, but the author had no definitive proof one way or the other, or if he did, he didn't state it. He also prescribes such meanings to decorations on cup, when again, they could have had particular meaning, or they could have just thought it was pretty.

He also claimed the Celts stored grain in holes as an act of offering to the cthonic (underworld) deities. I mean it's possible there were religious aspects, but there was a Time Team episode where they tested why they buried grain and they found that when it was buried, the grain on the outside would absorb oxygen, making it go bad, but with the removal of the oxygen it created an anaerobic environment which preserved the rest of the grain perfectly, and for long periods of time. Much like in modern times fresh fruit is stored in low oxygen warehouses so the fruit doesn't go bad. Couldn't this burial have been done for more practical reasons? Also, he claimed the 'bog butter' that was found in various bogs was an offering to the gods. It's possible, but again, the bog was a perfect way of preserving butter as a sort of temperature and humidity controlled refrigerator, which meant the butter could be stored there for long periods of time and retrieved later.

The author also gives too much weight to Roman and Greek sources regarding the Celts behaviour and cultural practices. He does state that Roman and Greek sources are biased, but then goes on to use their writings almost as fact, with the occasional insertion of 'but it could be biased.' Polybius, the often cited historian, may have claimed to report facts in an unbiased manner, but he was still a Roman/Greek elite and that could have drastically affected the way he reported on Celts. I also don't know how much direct contact he had with the Celts, but it seems like he talked to witnesses, who of course could exaggerate and say things which fed into the already present narrative of the Barbaric Celts created by the Romans for propagandistic reasons. It's fine if the author wants to use these writings, but he needs to state more clearly that all we can take from them are the Roman/Greek ideas of who the Celts were, but not actually know who the Celts were. There's a difference.

As far as DNA evidence goes, he basically says, DNA exists and we might get some important discoveries in the future. And that's about it. Even if there aren't any modern DNA studies going on (which I doubt), then he could at least mention future plans for studies, or say that there aren't any.

All the interesting things I want to learn about aren't really covered. There was about five minutes on the role of women in Celtic society. There might not be much in the written record about them, but graves could be analysed to try and figure out a woman's particular status. From the condition of her remains, her clothing and the items buried with her. For example, was she buried with a spindle, a knife, was her hair styled in a particular way, what jewels did she wear? But he just doesn't do it.

Also, what type of clothing did they wear? Was it linen, wool? Who the hell knows. There were some references to elites wearing silk and Celts liking fine decorations, but it was never gone in to with great detail. There was a general description of the armor they wore and weapons they carried, but this was sprinkled throughout various chapters and in chronological order. Perhaps just have a whole chapter on weaponry and armour instead of having to go hunting for it. And apart from biased Roman sources, what evidence do we have about the way they conducted warfare? Perhaps injuries done to skeletons could be analysed? That would be cool.

Perhaps the 'barbaric' behaviours the Romans ascribed to the Celts could also be analysed. Some Celts went into battle naked. Was it as crazy as it seems? Was their armour so lacking that going into battle naked didn't have much difference if they were clothed or not?

Basically, this author spits facts at you, makes a huge amount of assumptions, and in the end, you haven't actually learned that much about the things you might actually find interesting. But having said that, I did pick up a few titbits, and he did direct me towards other topics I would enjoy.

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esto le resultó útil a 5 personas

Oof.

Revisado: 02-07-22

So the actual information being told is really interesting. But oh boy, the narration. These are definitely lectures and do not come from prewritten scripts. There are lots of ums and ahs, and some really weird pronunciations. This might nock off a couple of stars for performance, but I'm still willing to put up with it because the information he presents is so interesting. (Having said that, this is the first time I've really engaged with the subject, so others with more knowledge will need to comment on the quality of the information given.)

However, and this might be a cultural thing, WHY DOES HE KEEP YELLING AT ME. Some Americans do speak more loudly than people from other countries, and that's fine, you do you. But this narrator, especially when he gets excited, STARTS YELLING AT ME. Obviously you can just turn down the volume, but the yelling kind of creeps up on you before you realise it and your ears get assaulted. And even when you do turn down the volume, the intonation of YELLING is still present. It's a lot.

I'm only up to lecture 6, and I will continue to the end, but I just needed to vent before I start again. Because, oof.

Edit: Nope. I gave up. I listened to just under half the book, cherry picking between the lectures which interested me. The narration didn't improve. This audiobook provided a good overview of the subject, but I think you would find a lot of it in any book giving a broad overview on Roman history, since Barbarian and Roman history are so intertwined. Also, according to Goodreads this series was produced in 2004. I get this is ancient history and very much in the past, but new DNA and archaeological evidence, as well as new interpretations of various theories could have emerged in the last eighteen years, so I might seek a more up to date lecture series.

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Pop journalism article lengthened into a book

Revisado: 02-05-22

It started out okay but then it just got worse and worse.

The title implies this book will explore how the development of textiles helped create civilisation. How the production and sale of cloth shaped trade routes and financial markets, it's influence in the development of new technologies, and the effect it had on our society through slavery, workers rights etc. Less than half this book covered these topics, and even then it is a brief overview at best.

It started out okay. The author talked about the meditative quality of spinning fibre, and how it was often a social thing for women. Thread and yarn was labour intensive to make by hand, and cloth was important, as a result their work was important. It helped me reframe the idea of what spinning meant to women. But at the same time, the control of its sale was still held by men.

The author then talked about the technological advancements in cloth production from ancient times to the present. The selective breeding of plants and animals to create raw materials, the development of dyes which led to the the chemical revolution of the Victorian era, how the production of fabric helped start the industrial revolution through the mechanisation of cloth production, and how automatic weavers were the progenitors of punch card computers, and thus modern computers.

Then things started to go off the rails. The author devoted an entire chapter to advancements in the production of fabric in the present day, which boiled down to, technology helps us produce good quality fabric for much cheaper, and people want more environmentally friendly cloth. How does this relate to the advancement of the entire human civilisation?

There was a single chapter devoted to trade, where the author said Italians developed credit slips in the 1300s, when Arab traders already had advanced systems of trade and had been doing this for centuries. She also seemed to give credit to the cloth industry for advancements made in trade, when they just appeared to be be advancements that came out of trade in general.

The author mentioned how the spinning wheel technology was invented in China, and it was the first of the kind. But never mentioned the pottery wheel was developed a few millennia before? I need more of an explanation here.

The author also spent an inordinate amount of time talking to people who have tech startups that revolve around fabric. Yeah, it's interesting, but how has athleisurewear made from synthetic material altered the shape of civilisation? (And that was the most practical of the innovations.) She spoke to a lot of people with start ups which hadn't actually achieved much commercially, or only had some vague promise of future success. It seemed like the author used this book as an excuse to speak to these tech people whom she was in awe of for some reason, and name-dropping famous tech firms.

The author also covered a lot of topics regarding what clothes Italian and Japanese people were allowed to wear at certain times in history, but again, how did that affect the creation of human civilisation? The author talked about how there was a demand for certain types of cloth in West Africa (I think in the 1800s), and how a Scottish cloth producer met this demand and altered the patterns he made to appeal to the market there. Also, how people in west African would buy cloth made in the West and alter it to suit their own stylistic taste, same deal with people in South America. This is interesting and everything, but how does this relate to the creation of civilisation?

On top of that, the author kept describing the physical appearance of experts she was speaking to and telling us things like one was a long distance marathon runner or that another liked to wear a motorcycle jacket. What? How is this relevant? Isn't it kind of demeaning to reduce an expert in their field down to a few pithy quotes about their appearance?

The author also liked to repeatedly insert herself into the text, talking about how she had food poising in India and as a result some expert had more time to dye some cloth, or something, and the circumstances around how she took a photo of an indigenous woman in South America. She would also insert her own personal judgements into the text, saying something like - it was surprising to find someone in Georgia(the state) studying a particular topic. There were many examples of this which were very off putting.

Then there was the narrator. She didn't have the best pronunciation at times, but it wasn't too bad. However, when she quoted women she would speak like a little girl, and when she quoted men, she would speak like a caveman. This was kind of insulting and somewhat offensive to people who were freely offering their advice and expertise to the author.

I'm also judging this book as much by what the author included, as what she didn't. I thought there would be discussion of the relationship between slavery and the production of cotton. The slave trade had a fundamental effect in shaping society, but the author barely mentions slavery other than to say it was bad. This book is about how the production of textiles shapes our society, and she barely mentions slavery at all? What in the absolute....

In the end, I got the feeling I would rather read a book from the experts the author spoke to than her. Half the book had nothing to do with the development of civilisation, and the chapters that did, had only the most brief overview. By the end, I didn't know if I could trust anything the author said.

Basically, this book gave me a good place to start with my own research and inspiration to seek out sources I can actually trust.

If you want a well-researched book that delves into the evolution of trade and civilisation, I would recommend The Golden Rhinoceros - Histories of the African Middle Ages. It covers areas of study which aren't as well-known in western scholarship and is extremely interesting.

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Excellent

Revisado: 02-04-22

I really enjoyed this! It is a fascinating area of study.

So often academics propose an hypothesis and then twist or cherry-pick facts in order to create a 'pretty' narrative. This author does not do that. Rather, he lays out what we know, what we don't know, and what possible explanations there are for the information we have available. It's a very welcome approach, and if you're interested in this topic, it's an excellent place to start.

However, it would be useful to provide a PDF download of maps depicting the various regions and cities that are described, a glossary of words used that aren't in the common vernacular, as well as a list of names of people mentioned. A lot of topics are covered, and it would make it so much easier to keep everything straight in my head if I had a reference guide. A bibliography would also be incredibly useful in directing me towards further reading on this topic.

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Great topic, poor execution.

Revisado: 02-02-22

The author makes many broad claims that would require entire books to explore, some of which don't seem to make logical sense, or if they do, need way more explanation. I'm just confused. As a result, even if the author does make good points, I don't know if I can trust anything he says.

Just google the role of oral tradition in African society and the role of elders and chiefs and you'll have a better understanding of this topic, but with actual academic sources to back it up.

The author also uses the term 'mankind' to refer to the entire human population, the term 'African man' to refer to the entire African population, and also uses the phrase 'emasculation of the African man' as an insult, as in making men more woman-like is bad because woman=weak. None of this language is appropriate in this context.

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