In a masterful blend of history, geography, and literature, Jean Markale re-creates the true King Arthur, the real-life Celtic warrior-hero who organized the resistance to the Saxon onslaught in fifth-century England. Markale’s unsurpassed knowledge of Celtic history has enabled him to reconstruct for us the actual world in which King Arthur lived–its heros, its values, and its vicissitudes–and to define the position that Arthur occupied within it.

* Explains how the Arthurian ideals of knightly virtue and chivalry are at the heart of Western literature and thought

* Shows how the Celtic heritage continues to exert a unique formative power on our personal and moral concepts