Author: Helge Ingstad
Publisher: Breakwater Books
ISBN: 9781550811582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Faced with harsh conditions in their Greenland home, a group of Vikings took the reins of fate into their own hands. With incredible luck, skill and fortitude, they discovered lands filled with a profusion of wood, wild game and fertile land. In the sagas that grew from this discovery, the lands were given names that resonated with hope and promise. Almost 1000 years later, a husband and wife team united their talents. Intrigued by allusions in the ancient sagas to fabled Vinland, they considered the scholarship on Viking culture and technology; they studied maps and they researched intensively the prominent theories on Vinland's location. And finally their efforts bore fruit when a remote Newfoundland peninsula yielded up a soapstone spindle-whorl, a Viking ring pin, and what had to be the overgrown remnants of over a dozen Viking buildings.
The Viking Discovery of America
Author: Helge Ingstad
Publisher: Breakwater Books
ISBN: 9781550811582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Faced with harsh conditions in their Greenland home, a group of Vikings took the reins of fate into their own hands. With incredible luck, skill and fortitude, they discovered lands filled with a profusion of wood, wild game and fertile land. In the sagas that grew from this discovery, the lands were given names that resonated with hope and promise. Almost 1000 years later, a husband and wife team united their talents. Intrigued by allusions in the ancient sagas to fabled Vinland, they considered the scholarship on Viking culture and technology; they studied maps and they researched intensively the prominent theories on Vinland's location. And finally their efforts bore fruit when a remote Newfoundland peninsula yielded up a soapstone spindle-whorl, a Viking ring pin, and what had to be the overgrown remnants of over a dozen Viking buildings.
Publisher: Breakwater Books
ISBN: 9781550811582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
Faced with harsh conditions in their Greenland home, a group of Vikings took the reins of fate into their own hands. With incredible luck, skill and fortitude, they discovered lands filled with a profusion of wood, wild game and fertile land. In the sagas that grew from this discovery, the lands were given names that resonated with hope and promise. Almost 1000 years later, a husband and wife team united their talents. Intrigued by allusions in the ancient sagas to fabled Vinland, they considered the scholarship on Viking culture and technology; they studied maps and they researched intensively the prominent theories on Vinland's location. And finally their efforts bore fruit when a remote Newfoundland peninsula yielded up a soapstone spindle-whorl, a Viking ring pin, and what had to be the overgrown remnants of over a dozen Viking buildings.
Norse America
Author: Gordon Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198861559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198861559
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.
North America from Earliest Discovery to First Settlements
Author: David B. Quinn
Publisher: New York : Harper & Row
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 666
Book Description
Details the activities of the Europeans who discovered, explored, and attempted to settle North America.
Publisher: New York : Harper & Row
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 666
Book Description
Details the activities of the Europeans who discovered, explored, and attempted to settle North America.
The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America
Author: Joseph Fischer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : America
Languages : en
Pages : 196
Book Description
Myths of the Rune Stone
Author: David M. Krueger
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452945438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven? David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define both a community’s and a state’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing told a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’s exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Indians. The tale’s credibility was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Faith in the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was a crucial part of the local Nordic identity. Accepted and proclaimed as truth, the story of the Rune Stone recast Native Americans as villains. The community used the account as the basis for civic celebrations for years, and advocates for the stone continue to promote its validity despite the overwhelming evidence that it was a hoax. Krueger puts this stubborn conviction in context and shows how confidence in the legitimacy of the stone has deep implications for a wide variety of Minnesotans who embraced it, including Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small-town boosters, and those who desired to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. Krueger demonstrates how the resilient belief in the Rune Stone is a form of civil religion, with aspects that defy logic but illustrate how communities characterize themselves. He reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. By considering who is included, who is left out, and how heroes and villains are created in the stories we tell about the past, Myths of the Rune Stone offers an enlightening perspective on not just Minnesota but the United States as well.
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452945438
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 181
Book Description
What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven? David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define both a community’s and a state’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing told a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’s exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Indians. The tale’s credibility was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Faith in the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was a crucial part of the local Nordic identity. Accepted and proclaimed as truth, the story of the Rune Stone recast Native Americans as villains. The community used the account as the basis for civic celebrations for years, and advocates for the stone continue to promote its validity despite the overwhelming evidence that it was a hoax. Krueger puts this stubborn conviction in context and shows how confidence in the legitimacy of the stone has deep implications for a wide variety of Minnesotans who embraced it, including Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small-town boosters, and those who desired to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. Krueger demonstrates how the resilient belief in the Rune Stone is a form of civil religion, with aspects that defy logic but illustrate how communities characterize themselves. He reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. By considering who is included, who is left out, and how heroes and villains are created in the stories we tell about the past, Myths of the Rune Stone offers an enlightening perspective on not just Minnesota but the United States as well.
America Not Discovered by Columbus - An Historical Sketch of the Discovery of America by the Norsemen in the Tenth Century
Author: Rasmus Bjorn Anderson
Publisher: Morse Press
ISBN: 1446021653
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Publisher: Morse Press
ISBN: 1446021653
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Author: Matthew Restall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839751
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403
Book Description
Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible. The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839751
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 403
Book Description
Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible. The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
The Vinland Sagas
Author:
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141906987
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
One of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration, these two Icelandic sagas tell of the discovery of America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Together, the direct, forceful twelfth-century Graenlendinga Saga and the more polished and scholarly Eirik's Saga, written some hundred years later, recount how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore - and if possible exploit - the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land. In spare and vigorous prose they record Europe's first surprise glimpse of the eastern shores of the North American continent and the natives who inhabited them.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141906987
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
One of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration, these two Icelandic sagas tell of the discovery of America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Together, the direct, forceful twelfth-century Graenlendinga Saga and the more polished and scholarly Eirik's Saga, written some hundred years later, recount how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore - and if possible exploit - the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land. In spare and vigorous prose they record Europe's first surprise glimpse of the eastern shores of the North American continent and the natives who inhabited them.
In Search of First Contact
Author: Annette Kolodny
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822352869
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447
Book Description
A radically new interpretation of two medieval Icelandic tales, known as the Vinland sagas, considering what the they reveal about native peoples, and how they contribute to the debate about whether Leif Eiriksson or Christopher Columbus should be credited as the first "discoverer" of America.
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822352869
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447
Book Description
A radically new interpretation of two medieval Icelandic tales, known as the Vinland sagas, considering what the they reveal about native peoples, and how they contribute to the debate about whether Leif Eiriksson or Christopher Columbus should be credited as the first "discoverer" of America.
The Vikings
Author: Robert Ferguson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101151420
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 502
Book Description
A comprehensive and thrilling history of the Vikings for fans of the History Channel series From Harald Bluetooth to Cnut the Great, the feared seamen and plunderers of the Viking Age ruled Norway, Sweden, and Denmark but roamed as far as Byzantium, Greenland, and America. Raiders and traders, settlers and craftsmen, the medieval Scandinavians who have become familiar to history as Vikings never lose their capacity to fascinate, from their ingeniously designed longboats to their stormy pantheon of Viking gods and goddesses, ruled by Odin in Valhalla. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls "the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history." His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia with its skaldic poetry is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries to reveal a sweeping picture of the Norsemen, one of history's most amazing civilizations. Impeccably researched and filled with compelling accounts and analyses of legendary Viking warriors and Norse mythology, The Vikings is an indispensable guide to medieval Scandinavia and is a wonderful companion to the History Channel series.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101151420
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 502
Book Description
A comprehensive and thrilling history of the Vikings for fans of the History Channel series From Harald Bluetooth to Cnut the Great, the feared seamen and plunderers of the Viking Age ruled Norway, Sweden, and Denmark but roamed as far as Byzantium, Greenland, and America. Raiders and traders, settlers and craftsmen, the medieval Scandinavians who have become familiar to history as Vikings never lose their capacity to fascinate, from their ingeniously designed longboats to their stormy pantheon of Viking gods and goddesses, ruled by Odin in Valhalla. Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls "the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history." His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia with its skaldic poetry is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries to reveal a sweeping picture of the Norsemen, one of history's most amazing civilizations. Impeccably researched and filled with compelling accounts and analyses of legendary Viking warriors and Norse mythology, The Vikings is an indispensable guide to medieval Scandinavia and is a wonderful companion to the History Channel series.