The Quest for Arthur's Britain

by Geoffrey Ashe

Book Overview

The legend of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table dominates the mythology of Britain, but could this story prove more fact than fiction? Recent archaeological findings have lead Geoffrey Ashe to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0897332873
• ISBN13: 9780897332873
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• Length: 318 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Slightly obsolete, but still a classic.

If I were reviewing this book when it was brand new at the end of the sixties, I would have had to give it five stars. The only reason that I am demoting it by a star is that it is slightly out of date. New archaeological data and new historical insights call for an updated edition of this great book. I wrote the chief author and editor of this book, Geoffrey Ashe, to congratulate and praise him for all his wonderful work on this subject. I especially praised his _The Discovery of King Arthur_ which was released in 1985 (I gave that one a five star review). I told him that since he had completely revolutionized the subject with that one, even great books like _Quest for Arthur's Britain_ and _Arthur's Britain_ by Leslie Alcock (I gave that one a four star review), who wrote some of the chapters of _Quest for Arthur's Britain_, now need to be updated a bit. I was extremely fortunate to get a reply from Mr. Ashe, who acknowledged that while these books were state-of-the-art when they first came out, they are now out of date in some ways. For example, some of the chronological data could stand to be updated; more and more data continues to come to light shifting certain events and figures back a bit; Arthur for example is now believed to have flourished about a generation earlier than was once thought. This beautifully illustrated book serves several functions: it gives an overview of the evolution of the Arthurian legend; there's a chapter on the end of Roman Britain; there are several chapters by great archaeologists (Phil Rhatz, C. A. Raleigh Radford, and Leslie Alcock) whose ground-breaking (excuse the pun) discoveries have greatly illuminated our understanding of the Arthurian age (5th and 6th centuries); and there is a good chapter on everyday life in the Arthurian age (food, fashion, etc.).