The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting and fascinating
Review: Most of us in the United States have full or partial European ancestry. The blood ties are there, and beneath that lies the not so distant founding of the European nations and cultures. This is a great book for anyone who wants to delve a little deeper into understanding Europe's founding and culture.

Rating:
Summary: Archaeology For the Rest of Us
Review: Peter Wells has done a nice job of taking his years of scholarly field research to create a book that is palatable, understandable and readable for the lay person interested in Pre-Roman culture in late Iron Age Europe and the effects and evidence of subsequent Romanization. Was it Napoleon that said "History is written by the victors"? In the case of the Roman interactions and subjugations of European tribes, the Romans were the only ones that could write! It is a painstaking task to recover the bits and pieces of those pre-existing and obviously vigorous cultures. To do so one must use a trowel instead of a library card. Thanks to Peter Wells for his fieldwork, his organizational sense and his enthusiasm for his subject. Us armchair archaeologists appreciate being presented with his fascinating body of knowledge.

Rating:
Summary: Snobbish and academic
Review: Wells is one of these post-modern deconstructionist types who thinks everything and anything Western is by very definition decadent and wrong. Rather than helping the reader understand the German and Celtic peoples who lived north of the Roman empire, he basically recasts them as Third World nations subjugated by the imperialists - the noble savage as perpetual victim. Worst of all, he can't write to save his life.