“Beyond a footnote”: Newton’s Scholarship “cause for rejoicing”
The forthcoming performance (July 11, Colaisde na Gàidhlig) of excerpts from Michael Newton’s Seanchaidh na Coille provides the opportunity to highlight a couple of dated reviews of which we were only recently alerted.
Reviewer Jamie Heap, who formerly wrote book reviews for the Amherst Daily News recently reprised his review of Celts in the Americas, edited by Michael Newton. Jamie writes: “Celts in the Americas is a thoroughly researched book that provides new insight into a once neglected part of our heritage.”
Jerry White, writing in the Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society (2013, 16: 213-15), said “the publication of the anthology… is a cause for rejoicing.”
“[T]his is very much a new-world discussion, a direct engagement with the way that Celtic peoples have experienced mobility and integration into new nations and new states, and thus experienced modernity.”
And in uncanny foresight to a frequent point of discussion of late, Mr. White says: The “return to language as the thing that balances cultural diversity and cultural rootedness provides a way forward for small cultures everywhere. Celts in the Americas is a real contribution to that kind of progress.”
In addition to Celts in the Americas (2013) and Seanchaidh na Coille / Memory-Keeper of the Forest: Anthology of Scottish-Gaelic Literature in Canada, CBU Press also published Michael Newton’s immensely popular The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic: All the Scottish-Gaelic You Need to Curse, Swear, Drink, Smoke and Fool Around, now going into its fourth printing.
