Celtic, European and Worldly

Petula Clarkson, The New Yorker, New Jersey, Saturday, 7th March 2026

In a literary landscape increasingly cluttered with the disposable and the derivative, Martyn de Tours’ Celtic Domination: The Most Significant Influencers arrives like a Molotov cocktail lobbed into a country club. It is a work of breathtaking intellectual audacity, a “Digital Celtic Covenant” that refuses to politely deconstruct the status quo, choosing instead to incinerate it. Part high-octane spy thriller, part “passive Marxist” manifesto, it is the definitive literary antidote to the toxic sludge of the MAGA era and the burgeoning “fetid imperialist conceit” of the extreme right.

The Protagonist as a Weapon of Intellectual Resistance

Becci Lloyd is a creation of pure, jagged brilliance, a woman “stitched from velvet and wire” who carries a first-edition Communist Manifesto in her red Mercedes as a “private joke” to the “valet queue” of the ruling class. She is the ultimate nightmare for the far-right: an academic with “a wit sharp enough to draw blood” who understands that “totalitarianism” is not just a political system, but a “planned debasement of the media” where “lies, disinformation, and dishonest interpretations” are sold as truth.

Where the MAGA movement offers a hollow, xenophobic nostalgia, Becci reclaims a Celtic identity that is “proud, hardy, and unbowed”. She doesn’t just study history; she uses it as a “talisman” to fight new battles against the “colonial bastards” who once tried to “cleanse, defame, and eradicate” Celtic cultures via the infamous “Blue Books” of 1847.

The Polemic: A Rant Against the “Archaeologists” of Depravity

De Tours uses the novel to expose “The Archaeologists,” a shadowy NGO funded by “right-wing power brokers”. Led by the “cultured extremist” Dr. Octavian Rhys-Lancaster , they represent the “amoral, disinhibited, and degenerate” forces of the extreme right. They are the “puppeteers of the shadows” who thrive in the “black mirror of social media” , feeding “binary minds” a steady diet of “supremacy pornography” and “resentment”.

The book is a blistering polemic against those who treat “genocide, starvation, and institutionalised cruelty” as mere political leverage. De Tours frames the current right-wing surge not as a movement, but as a “dirty war against the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Western liberal values”. It is a return to “jungle law” , led by those who “preach at the altar of amorality” and see “slaughter” as a legitimate tool of statecraft.

The “Hordes of Evil Doers”: Criticism from the Degenerates

The novel has predictably faced a barrage of “death threats” and “disinformation” from the “pro-genocide, pro-war, pro-maga” factions of the internet. To these “degenerate evil doers,” the “Celtic Magic” that de Tours invokes, a blend of “total peace, love, and understanding”, is a direct threat to their “totalitarian fantasies.”

They despise the book’s “A More Perfect Celtic Union” , which stands as a “Call to Arms” for:

• Environmental Stewardship: Rejecting the “arrogance and ignorance” of climate-deniers in favor of “respect for nature”.
• Radical Equality: Dismantling the systems where “the rich get richer” while millions are “left behind”.
• Universal Human Rights: Standing “always ready to fight for other people’s rights, identity, and dignity”.

A Masterpiece of Defiance

Celtic Domination is a “Modern Renaissance” in book form. It argues that while the extreme right may try to turn history into a “fetid imperialist conceit” , the “ancient pulse” of decency remains. De Tours has written a work that is “body-hugging and hubbly bubbly wonderful” yet sharp enough to disarm the “puppeteers” of modern hate. It is a necessary, biting, and “absolutely fabulous” scream into the void of modern politics, a reminder that “the beauty of the world lies in its plurality”, not in the grey, uniform walls of the fascist imagination.