Celt - No such thing !!!

[richsc]

no such thing as a Celt

They might have gotten that from Simon James' "Atlantic Celts". He made that assertion some years ago that the idea of 'celt' was invented in the 17th century, and never used in the ancient world. He says he has gotten death threats on this one, particularly from new age fans.

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.