A biographical study rather than a biography, the work is divided into three parts: "Politics and Nationality", "The Natural and The Supernatural", and "Ethnography". "Politics and Nationality" contains approximately half of the book in three chapters: "'Gerald of Wales' or 'Gerald the Welshman'", on Gerald's national identity; "Gerald the Ecclesiastic", on his ecclesiastical experience and ideal of reform; and "Kings", on his political opinions, including an extended discussion of his polemic against the
Angevin dynasty in
De principis instructione. This part is biographical and considers the social context in which Gerald wrote, though it does not treat in much depth his ecclesiastical ambitions or wider public career. The second part, divided into the chapters "Miracles and Marvels" and "Natural Science", deals with Gerald's treatment of the natural and supernatural. It discusses his use of miracles, which Bartlett treated as expressions of
retributive justice. Bartlett argued that this writing was Gerald's most durable intellectual achievement, and
Richard W. Pfaff described the section as the book's most ambitious part. Bartlett compared Gerald with two German contemporaries,
Adam of Bremen and
Helmold of Bosau, arguing that their attitudes toward the native peoples they encountered were similar. The work concludes with an appendix containing the first complete printing of Gerald's poem on
Prince Louis's invasion of England, a chronology of Gerald's works, a list of their manuscripts, and a "fairly full" bibliography. == Publication history ==