"Who were the Celts?"by Kevin Duffy

I have about two chapters of this book left to read. While, I was initially very excited to read this book my excitement soon sizzled out of me with each line of this book. I probably learned more about the Romans than I learned about the Celts I was so eager to learn about. Now I can't wait to get my frustration out.

The book itself seems to be organized efficiently into 14 chapters. I've read about two, sometimes three chapters depending on the day. With the exceptions of two or three chapters which were long enough that deserved to be read on their own. Each chapter is further divided into smaller sections. Now at first this seems like a great idea, but this is more of a space user, rather than actual smaller bites of a whole which aids in digestion of the information.

While some key information resides in the chapters it's usually the repetition of the same sound tid-bits that keeps getting heated over and served to the reader. There is too much emphasis on the Romans and while, it is true that Romans could have been brutal and ruthless, the book takes extra steps to color them as the clear villains of history. I would have liked a clearer, more in-depth organization of facts and a better reflection of such facts  surmounting in knowledge I could have walked away from at the end of this book. I haven't really learned anything I didn't already know--this is not to say that someone who doesn't know anything about the Celts won't learn anything from this picture. Quite the contrary, this books paints fresh and vivid descriptions of the ancient Celts in such a positive light, they could always leap off from the pages of the book. I would have liked to know more historical and practical knowledge than descriptions of their bronze, gold and trousers.
Many of the times the headline reads just what I want to read, instead though, it is just one paragraph about the said, or sometimes even pages with actually one line that states the obvious and moves on without providing any information. There are a lot of unnecessary and irrelevant information that never needed to be considered in inclusion of the book, however they made it through. I believe this is due to sloppy editing work on the part of the editor.

While there is a reference page at the end of the book, it's nearly impossible to tell which information belongs to which source. There is no in text citation, there are no foot citations either. It's almost like he wants to obscure anyone from actually checking his sources, while appearing he has thoroughly researched the subject and he makes wild conjectures based on very little historically true information.

Would I recommend this book? NO. There are far more reliable sources of information in regards to Celts rather than this one particular book. Look for others rather than using your time on this book. You won't benefit much from this book.