Northmen
By John Haywood
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
About this ebook
'Haywood's lucid explanations of the cultures of the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians are vital to understanding the motivations for their movements' KIRKUS REVIEWS.
The violent and predatory society of Dark Age Scandinavia left a unique impact on the history of medieval Europe. From their chill northern fastness, Norse warriors, explorers and merchants raided, traded, and settled across wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.
Northmen narrates their story focusing on places where key events were played out, from the sack of Lindisfarne in 793 to the murder in Iceland in 1241 of the saga-writer Snorri Sturluson. Such episodes are fascinating in themselves, but also shed crucial light on the nature of Viking activity – its causes, effects, and the reasons for its decline.
In 800 the Scandinavians were barbarians in longships bent on plunder and rapine; by 1200, their homelands were an integral part of Latin Christendom. John Haywood tells, in authoritative but compellingly readable fashion, the extraordinary story of the Viking Age.
John Haywood
John Haywood was educated at the universities of Lancaster, Cambridge and Copenhagen. He is an expert on the history of Dark Age Europe. His authorial credits include The New Atlas of World History (T&H ) and The Penguin Atlas of the Vikings.
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Reviews for Northmen
22 ratings1 review
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Quite dry and factual enumeration of the Viking raids and expansion in various parts of Europe, from the end of the 8th century until (mostly) the middle of the 11th century . The perspective is mainly that of the areas that suffered from the raids and what they did or did not do about it. So the biggest shortcoming of this book is that we do not gain any insight into the causes of the Viking expansion, unless that it was all about “honor and bounty”. Of course it was, but as a historical explanation that seems hardly sufficient, especially since we are talking about a period of more than 2 centuries of almost unending 'terror'.An interesting aspect though is the focus is on the ambiguous attitude of Western kings with regard to the Vikings: they often used them to get their own feudal lords into trouble, so that they would not affect their (royal) authority; in the end they only enforced the power of these local lords. The sketch of the gradual 'assimilation' of the Vikings, both in the areas they occupied, and in their home countries, is also quite remarkable. In short: a book that gives a limited number of answers about a very turbulent period in history.