The Vikings

by Julian D Richards
|
5 books
Despite being a non-literate society themselves, the Vikings sell lots of books today. This list highlights some recent works that provide overviews of the Viking World and new perspectives on the Viking phenomenon.
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Children of Ash and Elm

A History of the Vikings
Neil Price, 2020
Neil Price holds the Chair of Archaeology at Uppsala University in Sweden. This masterly overview provides the best single introduction to the Vikings and how they saw themselves. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the famous Lindisfarne raid in AD 793, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how the Vikings came to be who they were. The narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking world. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and examines the changes in society that resulted from an economy geared to maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the idea that Viking armies should be viewed as pirate communities.

The Viking Diaspora

Judith Jesch, 2015
Judith Jesch is Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham, and whilst she is primarily a specialist in early medieval literature, she has a rare inter-disciplinary command of historical and archaeological sources. In this sweeping review of the Viking World, she provides an authoritative overview of the Scandinavians at home and their migrations overseas, with a particular focus on gender and the family, cults, beliefs, and myths. By using the concept of diaspora, she focuses on the ways in which migrants maintained their sense of cultural identity with the Scandinavian homelands and other areas of Scandinavian migration. The interconnectedness of the Viking world is at the heart of this book, and language is seen as key to the maintenance of the Viking diaspora, reinforced by texts and material culture.

Viking Britain: A History

Thomas Williams, 2017
Thomas Williams was project curator for a major British Museum exhibition, Vikings: Life and Legend. In this tremendously readable account of Viking Britain from the late eighth to the end of the tenth century he interweaves first-person narrative, evocative prose, and more conventional historical and archaeological discussion to provide a new form of Viking history. Williams demonstrates how the Vikings have shaped British society, and how our perception has been shaped by authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and William Morris.

River Kings

A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads
Cat Jarman, 2022
Cat Jarman is an archaeologist and specialist in bioarcheology, including Ancient DNA and stable isotope research, which have the power to identify where people spent their childhoods and who their relatives were. As part of her research, she re-examined the disarticulated bones of at least 264 individuals from a charnel deposit associated with the over-wintering of the Viking Great Army in Repton. In the site archive, she discovered a carnelian bead that had been excavated amongst the bones. In this highly readable account, the bead becomes the jumping-off point for a journey that takes her along the major waterways of Eastern Europe, along the Silk Roads, and to the source of the carnelian in India.

The Norse Myths: A Guide to the Gods and Heroes (Myths)

Carolyne Larrington, 2017
This is the best single introduction to Norse mythology. Carolyne Larrington is Professor of Medieval European Literature at the University of Oxford and an expert in Old Norse literature. In this succinct introduction to Viking-Age legends, gods and mythical figures, she begins with a discussion of the evidence, revealing how we can piece together Norse mythology. She then guides the reader through the major aspects of Norse mythology, from the origins of the world to Valhalla, via the complex battles between gods, giants, and heroes.