The definitive history of the Vikingsâfrom arts and culture to politics and cosmologyâby a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise
The Viking Ageâfrom 750 to 1050âsaw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.
Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From EirĂk Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid ThorbjarnardĂłttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.
Ernest
2022-05-11
Neil Price shares his very deep understanding of the old norse world in a thurough and interesting way, his academic work becomes the rich soil for this easily assessable overview of the entire old norse world surrounding the time when people went viking.
Staffan
2022-03-21
Den amerikanska upplĂ€sarens uttal av Nordiska ortnamn, tilltalsnamn och termer ur asatron lĂ€mnar en del att önska. Det heter âFjordâ ocksĂ„ pĂ„ engelska, inte âfjyördâ, detta Ă€r ett irritationsmoment genom hela upplĂ€sningen.
Samuel
2022-02-02
Mycket bra och detaljerad.