A History of Arthurian Scholarship. Edited by Norris J. Lacy. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006. Pp. xiv + 285. $85.

All too often, books that attempt to provide a "history" of certain fields or subjects of intellectual inquiry run the risk of being blandly descriptive or of simply repeating information that is already well known without providing the reader any new data or shedding fresh light on old academic disputes or developments. I am happy to say that this is most certainly not the case here; this volume includes seventeen chapters written by experts in various fields of Arthuriana and offers up some very fine analyses of the critical traditions of Arthurian history, literature, art, and cinema.

Dorsey Armstrong
Purdue University