Books, Arts & Manners: Les Sauvages d’Ecosse

Celtic Warfare, 1595-1763, by James Michael Hill (Humanities Press International, 214 pp., $29.95)

Professor Hill’s compact and pithy volume shouldn’t simply be relegated to the library stacks, where good history books so often go. Never mind its status as a professional historical study. Never mind its elaborate apparatus of notes and bibliography. Consider instead the work’s emotional impact, its broad historical and cultural implications, and the tension imparted by its style. Mr. Hill’s tone—the impeccably correct accent of the academic lecturer—clashes grandly with the bloody substance of his narrative. The torque of his style and method, twisting against the burden of his story, produces a powerful dramatic force.

JT

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J. O. Tate

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Celtic Warfare, 1595-1763, by James Michael Hill (Humanities Press International, 214 pp., $29.95)

Professor Hill’s compact and pithy volume shouldn’t simply be relegated to the library stacks, where good history books so often go. Never mind its status as a professional historical study. Never mind its elaborate apparatus of notes and bibliography. Consider instead the work’s emotional impact, its broad historical and cultural implications, and the tension imparted by its style. Mr. Hill’s tone—the impeccably correct accent of the academic lecturer—clashes grandly with the bloody substance of his narrative. The torque of his style and method, twisting against the burden of his story, produces a powerful dramatic force.