The Rise of the Celts

Abstract

THIS study of the Celts, the result of many years' work, was still incomplete when the author died in 1927. It was completed in part and seen through the press by his friends with the assistance of lecture notes and a draft of the concluding chapter which will appear in a second volume. M. Hubert had an original outlook; and this was backed by a vast erudition, upon which to base a synthetic view of the linguistic, archaeological, anthropological and historical material, which it is necessary to master for an adequate discussion of the Celtic problem. His analysis of the linguistic evidence, as it appears in this volume, where it is brought to bear upon the place of the Celtic people in relation to other Indo-European peoples and on the relation of the Celtic people one to another, is of great value. It deserves careful consideration, especially among those who hitherto have shown a tendency to pay too exclusive an attention to archaeological evidence. It was M. Hubert's opinion that anthropology, that is, the study of physical characters in their racial aspect, can give little assistance; and it is a special merit of his study that he insists repeatedly on the distinction between ‘a race’, which the Celts were not, and lsq;a people’, which they were, in the sense of a number of groups more or less closely delated in a common culture and language. In the use of linguistic evidence also he is careful to point out its limitations in arguments on races and peoples.

The Rise of the Celts.

By the late Henri Hubert. Edited and brought up to date by Prof. Marcel Mauss, Raymond Lantier and Jean Marx. Translated from the French by M. R. Dobie. (The History of Civilization Series.) Pp. xxv + 335 + 4 plates. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1934.) 16s. net.