The Vikings

The Vikings

by Neil Oliver
The Vikings

The Vikings

by Neil Oliver

Paperback

$16.95 
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Overview

The Vikings famously took no prisoners, relished cruel retribution, and prided themselves on their bloodthirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the West and as far as Baghdad in the East. As the Vikings did not write their own history, we have to discover it for ourselves; and that discovery, as Neil Oliver reveals, tells an extraordinary story of a people who, from the brink of destruction, reached a quarter of the way around the globe and built an empire that lasted nearly two hundred years.

Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781605986395
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Publication date: 11/15/2014
Pages: 336
Sales rank: 111,964
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Neil Oliver is a Scottish archaeologist, historian, broadcaster, and writer. He is perhaps best known as the charismatic presenter of the award-winning documentary series Coast, as well as his two critically acclaimed landmark BBC history series, A History of Scotland and A History of Ancient Britain. He lives in Scotland.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Maps xi

Introduction xv

1 By Rock and Ice 1

2 Stone, Bronze and Iron 27

3 The Wider World 55

4 Pagans from the North 81

5 Swedish Vikings in the East 107

6 The Endless Stream of Vikings 134

7 The Great Heathen Army 164

8 A Rising Tide 192

9 Cnut the Great 222

Principal Viking Characters 254

Chronology 262

Bibliography 269

Acknowledgements 272

Index 274

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