Kirjahaku

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom HollandThe 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people came to be who they were.The narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in Scandinavian 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 previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England.Especially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly moving book.

The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertiseThe 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 Eirik Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.

A "thrilling" (Wall Street Journal) history of the Vikings by a pre-eminent scholar The Viking Age saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the 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 writers, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more.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, and beliefs to the lands and peoples they encountered. From Eir k Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudr d Thorbjarnard ttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is a remarkable history of the Vikings and their time.

The Viking period, which stretched from the eighth to the eleventh century, left behind half a million graves, many containing whole ships, sumptuous goods, and even the bodies of slaves or loved ones sacrificed alongside those who had died. Revealing that it was in death that the Viking view of life was most clearly distilled, "Odin's Whisper" uses Norse mythology and recent archaeological evidence to draw a compelling picture of the Viking mind. In this in-depth account, Neil Price argues that it is by understanding Viking burial that we can best understand the thought and mythology of this fascinating culture. Price contextualizes how Vikings grasped death within the "Ragnarok" - the immense battle of the living, dead, gods, and humans that would ultimately consume the world in fire - and illustrates that their conception of the afterlife was seen only as a respite before this end. He also shows that this violent view of the afterlife informed their funeral practice, divulging blood-curdling accounts of the sacrifices and rapes that occasionally marked burials.Filled with striking illustrations and reconstructions of graves, "Odin's Whisper"casts new light on Norse beliefs about death and, in turn, what these notions tell us of their beliefs about life.

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological or historical research has been done to explore what this may really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with which these were underpinned. Combining strong elements of eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move, in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a society permanently geared for war. In this fully-revised and expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country, meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields, and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology, history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before.

‘Dickens’s Favourite Blacking Factory’ is the extraordinary story of Charles Day, a self-made nineteenth-century boot-blacking entrepreneur, the dispute over whose Will led Charles Dickens to create the apparently endless case of ‘Jarndyce and Jarndyce’ in his novel ‘Bleak House’. In this remarkable and highly imaginative telling of a true story, after a decades-long search for information on his ancestor, the author makes a fluke discovery, revealing a sweeping story of Regency and early-Victorian London. An actual 170,000-word document uncovered in the National Archives exposes the tragic last two months of the life of Charles Day. This includes his deteriorating mental faculties resulting from tertiary syphilis, his remarkable philanthropy, blackmail by a dodgy solicitor, the inertia of the contemporary legal system and the shame of illegitimacy, particularly in the wealthy classes. Perhaps the plot of Dickens’s ‘Bleak House’ even reflects aspects of Charles Day’s own life?

ASK OCH EMBLAS BARN utnämndes 2020 till ”History Book of the Year” i THE TIMES och THE SUNDAY TIMES. »Price är inte bara en ledande auktoritet på området utan också en fantastisk författare, som växlar mellan att vara kvick, filosofisk och eftertänksam. Han har arkeologens förmåga att tolka stora mängder forskning och data och den skicklighet som krävs för återge det hela på ett levande vis.» /THE GUARDIANDet fanns många olika sätt att vara viking på. Schablonbilden av testosteronstinna krigare från norr som med svärdets, stridsyxans och långskeppets hjälp spred skräck över hela Europa står i vägen för en mycket mer intressant och sammansatt historisk verklighet. Schablonbilden gör i själva verket vikingarna närmast osynliga.I arkeologen Neil Prices översikt "Ask och Emblas barn" möter vi i stället historiskt och psykologiskt trovärdiga vikingar. Betoningen ligger på vilka de var, varför de uppträdde som de gjorde, hur de tänkte och kände. För vikingarna var det till exempel självklart att olika väsen hela tiden grep in i en människas liv. Och trots de givna sociala rollerna och de ömse­sidiga förpliktelserna i det på många sätt hierarkiska samhället, kunde utrymmet för avvikande identiteter och livsstilar ibland vara förbluffande stort.Neil Price diskuterar också de övergripande historiska omständigheter och processer som låg bakom vikingatiden, som 500-talets förödande klimatkollaps och den krigiska och klan­baserade samhällsordning som kom att växa fram i dess spår. Men vikingasamhället var allt annat än statiskt och de första, småskaliga och på plundring inriktade vikingatågen på 700-talet blev efter hand allt större och inriktade också på handel och bosättning.”Vikingafenomenet” och ”vikingadiasporan” får en mycket allsidig belysning i boken. Neil Price vill dessutom få oss att se vikingarna som dessa såg sig själva.Neil Price är född 1965, uppvuxen i London och professor i arkeologi i Uppsala. Han är en av världens ledande forskare på vikingaområdet och har under mer än trettio år publicerat en lång rad vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker, som har översatts till 22 språk. Han har även medverkat flitigt i radio och TV, däribland i SVT:s serie ”Historien om Sverige” (2023), och var konsult på långfilmen "The Northman" (2022).

»En mästerlig historia om vikingatiden …» /Jesper Högström i DN»Ska man läsa en bok om vikingatiden ska man läsa Ask och Emblas barn.» /VETENSKAPSRADION HISTORIA»En vikingahistoria som bräcker det mesta.» /Dick Harrison i SVENSKA DAGBLADETASK OCH EMBLAS BARN utnämndes 2020 till ”History Book of the Year” i THE TIMES och THE SUNDAY TIMES. »Price är inte bara en ledande auktoritet på området utan också en fantastisk författare, som växlar mellan att vara kvick, filosofisk och eftertänksam. Han har arkeologens förmåga att tolka stora mängder forskning och data och den skicklighet som krävs för återge det hela på ett levande vis.» /THE GUARDIANDet fanns många olika sätt att vara viking på. Schablonbilden av testosteronstinna krigare från norr som med svärdets, stridsyxans och långskeppets hjälp spred skräck över hela Europa står i vägen för en mycket mer intressant och sammansatt historisk verklighet. Schablonbilden gör i själva verket vikingarna närmast osynliga.I arkeologen Neil Prices översikt "Ask och Emblas barn" möter vi i stället historiskt och psykologiskt trovärdiga vikingar. Betoningen ligger på vilka de var, varför de uppträdde som de gjorde, hur de tänkte och kände. För vikingarna var det till exempel självklart att olika väsen hela tiden grep in i en människas liv. Och trots de givna sociala rollerna och de ömse­sidiga förpliktelserna i det på många sätt hierarkiska samhället, kunde utrymmet för avvikande identiteter och livsstilar ibland vara förbluffande stort.Neil Price diskuterar också de övergripande historiska omständigheter och processer som låg bakom vikingatiden, som 500-talets förödande klimatkollaps och den krigiska och klan­baserade samhällsordning som kom att växa fram i dess spår. Men vikingasamhället var allt annat än statiskt och de första, småskaliga och på plundring inriktade vikingatågen på 700-talet blev efter hand allt större och inriktade också på handel och bosättning.”Vikingafenomenet” och ”vikingadiasporan” får en mycket allsidig belysning i boken. Neil Price vill dessutom få oss att se vikingarna som dessa såg sig själva.Neil Price är född 1965, uppvuxen i London och professor i arkeologi i Uppsala. Han är en av världens ledande forskare på vikingaområdet och har under mer än trettio år publicerat en lång rad vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker, som har översatts till 22 språk. Han har även medverkat flitigt i radio och TV, däribland i SVT:s serie ”Historien om Sverige” (2023), och var konsult på långfilmen "The Northman" (2022).

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 Eir k Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnard ttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.