Download or read book River Kings written by Cat Jarman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow an epic story of the Viking Age that traces the historical trail of an ancient piece of jewelry found in a Viking grave in England to its origins thousands of miles east in India. An acclaimed bioarchaeologist, Catrine Jarman has used cutting-edge forensic techniques to spark her investigation into the history of the Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand years old, she can determine childhood diet—and thereby where a person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain a death-date down to the range of a few years. And her research offers enlightening new visions of the roles of women and children in Viking culture. Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into her temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings’ route was far more varied than we might think—that with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain. Told as a riveting history of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce, often-mythologized voyagers of the North—and of the global medieval world as we know it.
Download or read book The Age of the Vikings written by Anders Winroth and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-07 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major reassessment of the vikings and their legacy The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships to explore. The Age of the Vikings tells the full story of this exciting period in history. Drawing on a wealth of written, visual, and archaeological evidence, Anders Winroth captures the innovation and pure daring of the Vikings without glossing over their destructive heritage. He not only explains the Viking attacks, but also looks at Viking endeavors in commerce, politics, discovery, and colonization, and reveals how Viking arts, literature, and religious thought evolved in ways unequaled in the rest of Europe. The Age of the Vikings sheds new light on the complex society, culture, and legacy of these legendary seafarers.
Download or read book A Brief History of the Vikings written by Jonathan Clements and published by Robinson. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'From the Fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord.' Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans? This concise study puts medieval chronicles, Norse sagas and Muslim accounts alongside more recent research into ritual magic, genetic profiling and climatology. It includes biographical sketches of some of the most famous Vikings, from Erik Bloodaxe to Saint Olaf, and King Canute to Leif the Lucky. It explains why the Danish king Harald Bluetooth lent his name to a twenty-first century wireless technology; which future saint laughed as she buried foreign ambassadors alive; why so many Icelandic settlers had Irish names; and how the last Viking colony was destroyed by English raiders. Extending beyond the traditional 'Viking age' of most books, A Brief History of the Vikings places sudden Scandinavian population movement in a wider historical context. It presents a balanced appraisal of these infamous sea kings, explaining both their swift expansion and its supposed halt. Supposed because, ultimately, the Vikings didn't disappear: they turned into us.
Download or read book Sons of Vikings written by Kurt Noer and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sons of Vikings tells the story of the Viking Age (793-1066 A.D.) through the lives of extraordinary people. Each chapter is a biography of Ragnar Lothbrok, Ivar the Boneless, Bjorn Ironside, Rollo, Brian Boru, Erik the Red, Floki, Leif Erikson, Lagertha, Alfred, Rurik, Sviatoslav, William the Conqueror, and many other heroes and villains. It provides an understanding of this pivotal historical period in a way that facts and chronologies alone cannot. Sons of Vikings is meticulously researched from almost 100 sources but is also not afraid to challenge conventional beliefs and offer new perspectives. It is the perfect introduction for the casual fan of Vikings in television and popular culture but also offers a new take for the well-read history enthusiast. From myths, legends, sagas, and stories, to the most-recent archeology and DNA research, this book brings the Viking Age to life.
Download or read book Children of Ash and Elm written by Neil Price and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw 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 Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.
Download or read book The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings written by P. H. Sawyer and published by Oxford Illustrated History. This book was released on 2001 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'the volume will indeed be a treasury for pictorial sources, and the illustrations to more off-the-beaten-track chapters (especially Noonan's, on European Russia) are correspondingly unusual.' -Guy Halsall, War in History, 8, 3, 2001'the truest picture yet of the Vikings and their age.' -Publishing News
Download or read book Norse America written by Gordon Campbell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.
Download or read book The Vikings in History written by F. Donald Logan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Completely updated to include important primary research, archaeological findings and debates from the last decade, this third edition of F. Donald Logan's successful book examines the Vikings and their critical role in history. The author uses archaeological, literary and historical evidence to analyze the Vikings' overseas expeditions and their transformation from raiders to settlers. Focusing on the period from 800–1050, it studies the Vikings across the world, from Denmark and Sweden right across to the British Isles, the North Atlantic and the New World. This edition includes: a new epilogue explaining the aims of the book updated further reading sections maps and photographs. By taking this new archaeological and primary research into account, the author provides a vital text for history students and researchers of this fascinating people.
Download or read book Vikings written by W. B. Bartlett and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 642 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive new history of the infamous Vikings. Those men and women raided and traded their way into history whilst at the same time helping to build new nations in Scandinavia and beyond.
Download or read book A History of the Vikings written by Gwyn Jones and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at the ancient Scandinavian peoples.
Download or read book The Sea Wolves written by Lars Brownworth and published by Crux Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2014-12-09 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In AD 793 Norse warriors struck the English isle of Lindisfarne and laid waste to it. Wave after wave of Norse ‘sea-wolves’ followed in search of plunder, land, or a glorious death in battle. Much of the British Isles fell before their swords, and the continental capitals of Paris and Aachen were sacked in turn. Turning east, they swept down the uncharted rivers of central Europe, captured Kiev and clashed with mighty Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. But there is more to the Viking story than brute force. They were makers of law - the term itself comes from an Old Norse word - and they introduced a novel form of trial by jury to England. They were also sophisticated merchants and explorers who settled Iceland, founded Dublin, and established a trading network that stretched from Baghdad to the coast of North America. In The Sea Wolves, Lars Brownworth brings to life this extraordinary Norse world of epic poets, heroes, and travellers through the stories of the great Viking figures. Among others, Leif the Lucky who discovered a new world, Ragnar Lodbrok the scourge of France, Eric Bloodaxe who ruled in York, and the crafty Harald Hardrada illuminate the saga of the Viking age - a time which “has passed away, and grown dark under the cover of night”.
Download or read book The Viking Age written by Angus A. Somerville and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this extensively revised third edition of The Viking Age: A Reader, Somerville and McDonald successfully bring the Vikings and their world to life for twenty-first-century students and instructors. The diversity of the Viking era is revealed through the remarkable range and variety of sources presented as well as the geographical and chronological coverage of the readings. The third edition has been reorganized into fifteen chapters. Many sources have been added, including material on gender and warrior women, and a completely new final chapter traces the continuing cultural influence of the Vikings to the present day. The use of visual material has been expanded, and updated maps illustrate historical developments throughout the Viking Age. The English translations of Norse texts, many of them new to this collection, are straightforward and easily accessible, while chapter introductions contextualize the readings.
Download or read book The Vikings written by Robert Ferguson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-11-25 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive and thrilling history of the Vikings for fans of the History Channel series From Harald Bluetooth to Cnut the Great, the feared seamen and plunderers of the Viking Age ruled Norway, Sweden, and Denmark but roamed as far as Byzantium, Greenland, and America. 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 Viking gods and goddesses, ruled by Odin in Valhalla. 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 with its skaldic poetry is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries to reveal a sweeping picture of the Norsemen, one of history's most amazing civilizations. Impeccably researched and filled with compelling accounts and analyses of legendary Viking warriors and Norse mythology, The Vikings is an indispensable guide to medieval Scandinavia and is a wonderful companion to the History Channel series.
Download or read book Viking Empires written by Angelo Forte and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-05 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Viking Empires, first published in 2005, is a definitive global history of the Viking World.
Download or read book Northmen written by John Haywood and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative volume that places the Vikings in their wider geographical and historical context.
Download or read book The Real Valkyrie written by Nancy Marie Brown and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra, Brown lays to rest the hoary myth that Viking society was ruled by men and celebrates the dramatic lives of female Viking warriors “Once again, Brown brings Viking history to vivid, unexpected life—and in the process, turns what we thought we knew about Norse culture on its head. Superb.” —Scott Weidensaul, author of New York Times bestselling A World on the Wing "Magnificent. It captured me from the very first page." —Pat Shipman, author of The Invaders In 2017, DNA tests revealed to the collective shock of many scholars that a Viking warrior in a high-status grave in Birka, Sweden was actually a woman. The Real Valkyrie weaves together archaeology, history, and literature to imagine her life and times, showing that Viking women had more power and agency than historians have imagined. Nancy Marie Brown uses science to link the Birka warrior, whom she names Hervor, to Viking trading towns and to their great trade route east to Byzantium and beyond. She imagines her life intersecting with larger-than-life but real women, including Queen Gunnhild Mother-of-Kings, the Viking leader known as The Red Girl, and Queen Olga of Kyiv. Hervor’s short, dramatic life shows that much of what we have taken as truth about women in the Viking Age is based not on data, but on nineteenth-century Victorian biases. Rather than holding the household keys, Viking women in history, law, saga, poetry, and myth carry weapons. These women brag, “As heroes we were widely known—with keen spears we cut blood from bone.” In this compelling narrative Brown brings the world of those valkyries and shield-maids to vivid life.
Download or read book Blood Feud written by S.J.A. Turney and published by Canelo. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The wolves of Odin have been unleashed: the hunt has begun. Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy’ of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods. That oath will bring together an unlikely band of allies and carry them to the very edge of the world, fighting giants, dragons and wraiths, in pursuit of his father’s killer: Yngvar. The jarl is powerful, and the weaving of Fate difficult, but the blood price must be paid. A compelling and explosive novel of revenge, this is a major new series from S.J.A. Turney. Perfect for fans of Bernard Cornwell, Giles Kristian and Angus Donald. Praise for Blood Feud 'Si Turney is a natural born storyteller, gifted, brilliant and utterly enthralling. Blood Feud tells the story of a young Norse warrior, Halfdan, who swears to avenge the murder of his father. The reader is almost immediately immersed into the action, swept away into the dragon-ship beside Halfdan and his tough, salty and occasionally hilarious crew of Vikings... An intelligent, fast-paced but finely crafted novel of battle, comradeship and bloody revenge – with some surprising twists along the way. Highly recommended to all those who enjoy a superior Viking adventure yarn!' Angus Donald, author of The Last Berserker 'SJA Turney's new Viking epic is a bone-crunching good time! A resourceful young warrior on a quest for vengeance takes to the sea with a dragon long-ship and a motley band of new friends, fighting old enemies, foreign wars and the mysterious workings of fate at every new turn of the tide. Blood Feud is sure to thrill those mourning the end of Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories' Kate Quinn, author of The Rose Code 'A rich combination of saga and quest, religion and violence, with a satisfying conclusion that paves the way for further adventures' Ruth Downie, author of the Medicus series
