Book reviews in brief: The Last Crusaders | Blood and Mistletoe

Published on Thursday 30 April 2009 14:46

THE LAST CRUSADERS BY BARNABY ROGERSON (Little, Brown, £20)

1492, THE year of Columbus's great discovery, also saw the completion of the Iberian Reconquista with the Moors' expulsion from Granada. Even as Spain and Portugal rose, however, a new power was ascendant in the east where the Ottoman Turks had already taken Constantinople. The stage was set for a showdown-struggle over more than a century, with great battles by land and sea – at Varna, Kosovo, Belgrade, Rhodes, Mohacs, Malta and Lepanto. The conflict spilled over into the Indian Ocean, its repercussions reached the New World colonies. This is an epic, excitingly told, sympathetically imagined and intelligently thought through. The "clash of civilisations" schema we've heard so much of recently was more apposite then than now, yet it's clearly apparent here how blunt a rhetorical implement it is.

BLOOD AND MISTLETOE

BY RONALD HUTTON

(Yale, 30)

AS INDIVIDUALS we reveal ourselves most in unguarded moments; as societies we may show who we are most vividly in our eccentricities and fads – and few things could be quirkier than our endless reinventions of the Druids.

Hutton's history deals with what's known of the Celtic originals in a few sketchy pages at the start: it's mostly Graeco-Roman propaganda.

His real concern is with the constantly developing role the Druids have played in Britain's various cultures since the 17th century, and their place in changing notions of nationality in these islands. From the first of the "antiquaries" through the foundation of the thoroughly modern Ancient Order to the Stonehenge solstice-celebrations of recent times. The result is an engrossing, endlessly thought-provoking read.