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The VikingsStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionThe Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years from the late eighth to the late eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the then-known world. Over the last half-century archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period, and beyond the stereotypical Viking raider we can now perceive a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers and colonists. Over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation states and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. This volume explores the society and economy, identity and world-views of the Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later. Author descriptionNeil Price is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. A leading specialist on the Vikings and ancient religion, he is the author of The Vikings in Brittany (1989), The Viking Way (2002), co-editor of The Viking World (2008) and numerous other books and papers. Neil also has global archaeological interests, with recent work ranging from the Holocaust to the Jamestown settlement. He is currently researching Viking burials, historical piracy, World War II in the Pacific, and the Canton opium trade. Table of contents1. Introduction: Viking variations 2. Encountering the Vikings 3. Viking lives and landscapes 4. Tradition and world-view 5. The Viking diaspora 6. Christianity and the state |