Review by Choice Review
Haywood's new history of the Viking world is an easily readable narrative for informed students or general readers. His approach differs from many books on the Vikings by creating manageably discrete chapters about the stories of geographic regions. Within each region, the author pays close attention to internal chronology. Haywood always provides excellent maps, so his geographic focus comes naturally. This approach should be particularly helpful to readers who are also learning the geography, since it allows them to gain closer familiarity with single areas and to understand their landscape, environment, and physical relationships within the larger Viking culture sphere. A chronological time line at the end of the volume ties together the different locations of the narrative. The emphasis on the massive range of Viking movement and influence is difficult to comprehend when reading texts with a stricter chronological approach. Haywood gives a healthy balance of historical, archaeological, and literary information. He discusses few sources in the text, but provides a helpful primary and secondary reading list. This is not an imposing academic work, but it provides scholarly points of view and an excellent introduction to the subject. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General, public, and undergraduate libraries. --Deborah J. Shepherd, independent scholar
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Haywood's subtitle is sobering, indicating as it does that the astonishing violence of Europe's northernmost peoples spanned four-and-a-half centuries. Haywood proceeds chronologically overall while switching sectional focus from England to France to Scotland and so forth, backing up in time as needed. In western Europe, Norwegian and Danish Vikings were pirates with plenty of coast to raid, plundering, killing, and taking captives to sell as slaves. In the east, Swedes sailed up the rivers of Russia and down those flowing into the Black and Caspian seas; trade figured sooner and more extensively in their depredations. Both western and eastern Vikings settled and cooperated as they raided, and the national agglomeration and centralization of those they attacked they gradually developed back home. Toward the end of their era, having adopted Christianity, they participated in crusades in both the Holy Land and their own precincts. Although Haywood doesn't seem to know the word whom, and the reader boggles at all the Erics, Sveins, and Olafs, Northmen is probably the Viking history for our time.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this ambitious, sprawling study, Haywood (Viking: The Norse Warrior's [Unofficial] Manual), who has written extensively on medieval Europe, manages to construct a definitive, if not always accessible, history of Viking civilization. He reaches into the dim past to study their creation myths and lore before embarking on a historical journey that covers nearly five centuries and spans several continents. The result is a dense, information-heavy work that digs deep into what made Viking culture tick. "The Vikings were an unprecedented phenomenon in European history, not for any technological, military or cultural innovation that they contributed to... but for the vast expanse of their horizons," Haywood writes by way of introduction. And so he carefully and thoroughly examines their spread through Europe, into Asia, and across the seas to see how they affected the world, and how they evolved from a pagan culture into a Christian one-a development that spelled the end of the Vikings and the birth of a slightly more sedate Scandinavia. As a work of sociopolitical history, this is a solid, slow-paced affair jammed full of names, places, and dates. Its value is thus as an academic resource, a historian or researcher's best friend, and it will be less useful for the casual reader looking for some easy answers. Maps & photo insert. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Review by Library Journal Review
In his ambitious new book, Haywood, an expert on the Dark Ages in Europe, (The New Atlas of World History; The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings) attempts to provide broader geographical and historical context for the Vikings. The Norsemen were distinct in that no other early Europeans interacted and expanded their territory as early in history as they did, despite not being the most technologically advanced Europeans at the time. The author asserts that the Viking Era extends beyond the conventional period of 790-1066 CE, beginning earlier and culminating around 1240 when Viking seafaring and conquest began its inevitable decline. Haywood delves briefly into the Norse mythology that drove them, and covers a full chronology of Norse conquest, which has left a lasting impact on Europe, Asia, and North America. This meticulously researched book includes extensive maps, a full chronology, a comprehensive list of Viking kings and rulers, and resources for further reading and research including primary-source materials. -VERDICT Delivering a well-researched and thoroughly captivating work, Haywood gives readers an expansive view of the Viking Era and peoples who continue to capture the -collective -imagination.-Lyndsie Robinson, Milne Lib., SUNY Oneonta © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
