'Gavin Kelly's Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian is a thought-provoking and original study of a key fourth-century author. It makes a valuable contribution to the field of late antique studies and of Ammianus in particular by focusing on the literary aspects of the historian's text. Bridging the gap across disciplines, Kelly's book should appeal equally to classicists and historians. In doing so, Kelly follows in the footsteps of Averil Cameron, Elizabeth Clark, and others who in turn have taken their cue for reading texts from continental philosophers. The result is an engaging interpretation of Ammianus as a creative and erudite writer. By the same token, Kelly also creates a via media in scholarship on Ammianus between the two dominant voices of the last two decades, John Matthews and Timothy Barnes, the former largely taking Ammianus at his word as a starting point for a larger exploration of the world the historian lived in, the latter presenting Ammianus as a writer of fiction whose historical account was unreliable. Instead, Kelly appraises Ammianus on his own ground, as a writer of history according to the ancient literary conventions of the genre, and not following (dubious) modern criteria of objectivity and veracity. (...) In the end, this is a very valuable study that should appeal to a variety of scholars: late antique historians, scholars of Ammianus, Latinists, classicists interested in historiography and the use of classical texts in the late Empire, students of rhetoric and literature. Kelly's ongoing attention to modern scholarship would make the book a good reading companion to Ammianus for graduate seminars, and his presentation of most significant passages in translation makes it accessible to students with little knowledge of Latin. Modern students of Ammianus have now a third pole of attraction to consider, after navigating between Matthews and Barnes for over a decade.' (ERIC FOURNIER in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.12.31).