Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic

by Karen Oslund, William Cronon

Overview

Iceland, Greenland, Northern Norway, and the Faroe Islands lie on the edges of Western Europe, in an area long portrayed by travelers as remote and exotic - its nature harsh, its people reclusive. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, however, this marginalized region has gradually become part of modern Europe, a transformation that is narrated in Karen Oslund’s Iceland Imagined.

This cultural and environmental history sweeps across the dramatic North Atlantic landscape, exploring its unusual geography, saga narratives, language, culture, and politics, and analyzing its emergence as a distinctive and symbolic part of Europe. The earliest visions of a wild frontier, filled with dangerous and unpredictable inhabitants, eventually gave way to images of beautiful, well-managed lands, inhabited by simple but virtuous people living close to nature.

This transformation was accomplished by state-sponsored natural histories of Iceland which explained that the monsters described in medieval and Renaissance travel accounts did not really exist, and by artists who painted the Icelandic landscapes to reflect their fertile and regulated qualities. Literary scholars and linguists who came to Iceland and Greenland in the nineteenth century related the stories and the languages of the “wild North” to those of their home countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780295990835
Publisher:	University of Washington Press
Publication date:	05/05/2011
Series:	Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Karen Oslund is assistant professor of world history at Towson University in Maryland.

Table of Contents

Maps

The North Atlantic 8

Iceland 37

Greenland 87

Faroe Islands 125

Foreword

Amid the Mists of Northern Waters and Words William Cronon vii

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction

Imagining Iceland, Narrating the North 3

1 Icelandic Landscapes

Natural Histories and National Histories 30

2 Nordic by Nature

Classifying and Controlling Flora and Fauna in Iceland 61

3 Mastering the World's Edges

Technology, Tools, and Material Culture in the North Atlantic 82

4 Translating and Converting

Language and Religion in Greenland 104

5 Reading Backward

Language and the Sagas in the Faroe Islands 123

Epilogue

Whales and Men

Contested Scientific Ethics and Cultural Politics in the North Atlantic 152

Notes 171

Bibliography 221

Index 253

What People are Saying About This

Gisli Palsson

An excellent work, covering unusual ground. The author's mastery of a variety of contexts—Inuit, Faroese, Icelandic, Scandinavian—and different periods—historical and modern—is admirable. Not only does Iceland Imagined nicely chart important historical contours in the North Atlantic region, it offers numerous useful and original observations on themes in history, anthropology, literature, and linguistics.

Gisli Palsson

"An excellent work, covering unusual ground. The author's mastery of a variety of contexts—Inuit, Faroese, Icelandic, Scandinavian—and different periods—historical and modern—is admirable. Not only does Iceland Imagined nicely chart important historical contours in the North Atlantic region, it offers numerous useful and original observations on themes in history, anthropology, literature, and linguistics."

William Cronon

"The great contribution of Iceland Imagined is to help us understand the mental geographies that over the past quarter millennium have come to define the North Atlantic—and that teach us more than we might think about the rest of the world."

Editorial Reviews

". . . compelling and richly detailed . . ."

H-SAE - Kai Heidemann

"The book is sure to be of interest to those studying Iceland and the North Atlantic's culture and environmental history and those interested in the European understanding of that region. Summing Up: Recommended."

Choice

"One should read this book for its history of ideas and perceptions and its grasp of the tensions that exist and have existed at cultural frontiers . . ."

Geographical Review - Russell Fielding

"Oslund’s comprehensive critical analysis of the narratives and counter-narratives of the gradual evolution of Iceland and the North Atlantic’s perceived exoticism into a regulated, normalized part of ‘our’ world is a valuable contribution to the fields of environmental, cultural and linguistic history, and to Scandinavian scholarship in general."

European History Quarterly - John D. Shafer

"The narrative moves swiftly and elegantly over unusual grounds. . . . The final chapter discusses two present-day controversies . . . Oslund argues convincingly that in both these controversies stories that travelers had written in the 18th and 19th centuries . . . were retold. In doing so she also demonstrates the present day relevance of studying how Iceland has been imagined in the past."

Technology and Culture - Arne Kaijser

"The book is well written and detailed. . . . The outcome is a mental journey in the vast and varying region of the North Atlantic, which brings forward surprisingly many details, even for someone raised and living in Iceland."

H-Environment - Helga Ogmundardottir

. . . compelling and richly detailed . . .

--Kai Heidemann "H-SAE"

One should read this book for its history of ideas and perceptions and its grasp of the tensions that exist and have existed at cultural frontiers . . .

--Russell Fielding "Geographical Review"

Oslund's comprehensive critical analysis of the narratives and counter-narratives of the gradual evolution of Iceland and the North Atlantic's perceived exoticism into a regulated, normalized part of 'our' world is a valuable contribution to the fields of environmental, cultural and linguistic history, and to Scandinavian scholarship in general.

--John D. Shafer "European History Quarterly" (1/1/2014 12:00:00 AM)

The book is sure to be of interest to those studying Iceland and the North Atlantic's culture and environmental history and those interested in the European understanding of that region. Summing Up: Recommended.

-- "Choice" (1/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)

The book is well written and detailed. . . . The outcome is a mental journey in the vast and varying region of the North Atlantic, which brings forward surprisingly many details, even for someone raised and living in Iceland.

--Helga Ogmundardottir "H-Environment" (1/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)

The narrative moves swiftly and elegantly over unusual grounds. . . . The final chapter discusses two present-day controversies . . . Oslund argues convincingly that in both these controversies stories that travelers had written in the 18th and 19th centuries . . . were retold. In doing so she also demonstrates the present day relevance of studying how Iceland has been imagined in the past.

--Arne Kaijser "Technology and Culture" (1/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher