The Vikings: A History [NOOK Book]

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Overview

A comprehensive and thrilling history, based on the latest scholarship, offers the definitive portrait of the Vikings

Raiders and traders, settlers and craftsmen, the medieval Scandinavians who have become familiar to history as Vikings never lose their capacity to fascinate, from their ingeniously designed longboats to their stormy pantheon of gods and goddesses. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls "the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history". His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia is combined with the latest ...
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More About This Book

Overview

A comprehensive and thrilling history, based on the latest scholarship, offers the definitive portrait of the Vikings

Raiders and traders, settlers and craftsmen, the medieval Scandinavians who have become familiar to history as Vikings never lose their capacity to fascinate, from their ingeniously designed longboats to their stormy pantheon of gods and goddesses. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls "the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history". His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries to reveal a sweeping picture of one of history's most amazing civilizations.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Ferguson (Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun; Henrik Ibsen: A New Biography) offers a comprehensive overview of the Viking age, covering mythology and tradition alongside the many bloody forays Viking warriors made into Europe and the North Atlantic between roughly 790 and 1100 C.E. Although Ferguson often notes how incomplete the source material is, he tells a full and lively story and is transparent about where records or interpretations diverge. The narrative occasionally threatens to get bogged down in a confusion of Olafs, Olavs, and Olofs, but Ferguson keeps the pace up with numerous fascinating tidbits. He describes Viking words still used in modern English, the Viking origins of major British cities, and the dark rituals the community hung onto as Christianity crept into Denmark, Scandinavia, and Iceland, eventually bringing the population into a more peaceful modernity. VERDICT Ferguson has produced a readable and accessible book that will serve as a solid introduction to Viking history, even for those with no previous knowledge of the subject.—Elizabeth Goldman, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.\
Kirkus Reviews
Scandinavian studies scholar Ferguson puts the violence back in the Viking Age in his knotty, dense, intriguing look at these restless voyagers and conquerors. The so-called Viking Age-roughly between 793 CE, with the raid on the island of Lindisfarne, and 1066, with the Battle of Hastings-got under way when the sea-faring Norsemen began their marauding infiltrations of the British Isles and the European continent, venturing as far as Muslim Spain and Constantinople. The motivation for their movement south is sometimes attributed to the overpopulation and scant resources of their Scandinavian homelands, but Ferguson debunks this idea, advancing the case of holy war in retaliation for the slaughter of Saxons by the crusading Christians under Charlemagne. These pagan seaborne raiders were violent, terrifying and merciless, and Ferguson traces their plundering devastation across a vast swath of territory: the Shetland and Orkney islands, where they wiped out the native Picts; Ireland and England, where they established strongholds; Normandy, where the Carolingian rulers appeased them by offering land and fortunes and their leader Rollo eventually converted; across the Baltic into Slavic lands; Seville and the Iberian peninsula; and Iceland and Greenland, with brief treks to Newfoundland. Ferguson notes how the study of place-names reveals the extent to which the Vikings seized control. He looks at Viking culture and pre-Christian beliefs, such as their rich cosmology and myths, skaldic verse, strong sense of communal responsibility, a view to an afterlife evident from burial ceremonies and an ingrained employment of law-the Danelaw. The author also examines King Harald Bluetooth's monumentto his conversion, the pyramidal rune-stone in Jelling, Denmark. Ferguson's scholarly study requires close attention, but the intellectual rewards are plentiful. Provides a significant deepening of our knowledge of the Vikings.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781101151426
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
  • Publication date: 11/25/2009
  • Sold by: Penguin Group
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 464
  • Sales rank: 48,525
  • File size: 1 MB

Meet the Author

Robert Ferguson
Robert Ferguson

Robert Ferguson is a leading authority in the field of Scandinavian studies. A resident of Norway, Ferguson has also published biographies of Henrik Ibsen and Knut Hamsun.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

Introduction 1

1 The Oseberg Ship 9

2 The culture of northern Heathendom 20

3 The causes of the Viking Age 41

4 'The devastation of all the islands of Britain by the Heathens' 58

5 The Vikings in the Carolingian empire 83

6 Across the Baltic 108

7 The Danelaw I: Occupation 132

8 The settlement of Iceland 154

9 Rollo and the Norman colony 174

10 The master-builder: Harald Bluetooth and the Jelling Stone 196

11 The Danelaw II: Assimilation 216

12 When Allah met Odin 245

13 A piece of horse's liver: The pragmatic Christianity of Hakon The Good 263

14 Greenland and North America 280

15 Ragnarok in Iceland 298

16 St Brice, St Alphege and the Wolf: The fall of Anglo-Saxon England 325

17 The Viking saint 348

18 Heathendom's last bastion 364

Notes 383

Index 421

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 16 )

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Sort by: Showing 1 – 14 of 10 Customer Reviews

  • Posted June 22, 2011

    Highly Recommend

    Great book, if a bit dry at times. This is an exciting topic and the book is written in an engaging fashion, although as with any historical treatise, the information can at times be dense and less than exciting. As other reviewers have mentioned, the book skips around a bit in historic dates but i did not find this as problematic as others did. I can't recommend this book highly enough for those who are ready to delve deeper into the history of the people of the Scandinavian region, and the effect they had on the surrounding areas as well as the entire western world at the time.

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  • Posted January 17, 2010

    excellent

    Engaging history of a fascinating people. Well worth a read if you are at all interested in the Vikings & their culture.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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