Review by Choice Review
Winroth (Yale) has penned a fast-paced, slender volume on the Viking Age designed for general readers. His purpose is twofold: to dispel long-held myths about the Vikings (such as their sporting horned helmets) and to convey a faithful picture of life in Viking Age Scandinavia. In pursuit of the first goal, the author assumes an overly skeptical view about what the literary sources report: European chronicles by churchmen, skaldic poetry, and Norse sagas (chapters 1-2 and 8). Winroth dismisses most of what Snorri Sturluson reports about the gods in the Prose Edda as Christianizing rationalization. As a result, readers are left to wonder about what motivated and ended the Viking Age and its significance to European history. The author is at his best in offering a series of vignettes on social history (chapters 3-7), based on his mastery of archaeology. With a style that is vivid, engaging, and brilliant in detail, Winroth skillfully summarizes an impressive body of scholarship not available to most readers. He re-creates the drudgery of farm work to the far-ranging trade in exotic goods, evoking daily life in Viking Age Scandinavia. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General, public, and undergraduate libraries. --Kenneth W. Harl, Tulane University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
The world of the Vikings is still a bit mysterious. Norse chieftains and their skalds (poets) rarely kept written records of their voyages, and Viking rune-stone writers were deliberately misleading. Modern scholars have to study archaeological evidence and foreign accounts (sometimes unreliable) to piece together histories of the people who eventually formed Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Because field archaeology continues to make discoveries, new histories such as this one are needed for students and general readers. Winroth focuses on the eighth through eleventh centuries, a period in which the Vikings transformed themselves from feared coastal raiders to full participants in the Christian civilization of Western Europe. After his introduction, which dramatizes the festivities of a celebratory dinner at which a chieftain distributes booty, the author explains Viking warfare, shipbuilding, travel, trade, monarchies, agriculture, religions, arts, and literature. Thanks to its good organization and index (unseen), this history will also help students with assignments.--Roche, Rick Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
