The Untold History of the Vikings

The Untold History of the Vikings PDF Author: Martin J. Dougherty
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1502619032
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Beginning in 789AD, the Vikings raided monasteries, sacked cities and invaded western Europe. They looted and enslaved their enemies. But that is only part of their story. In long boats they discovered Iceland and America (both by accident) and also sailed up the Seine to Paris (which they sacked). They settled from Newfoundland to Russia, founded Dublin and fought battles as far afield as the Caspian Sea. A thousand years after their demise, traces of the Vikings remain all the way from North America to Istanbul. They traded walruses with Inuits, brought Russian furs to Western Europe and took European slaves to Constantinople. Their graves contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks and Frankish weapons. In this accessible book, the whole narrative of the Viking story is examined from the eighth to the 11th century. Arranged thematically, Vikings – A History of the Norse People, examines the Norsemen from exploration to religion to trade to settlement to weaponry to kingdoms to their demise and legacy. But today questions remain: what prompted the first Viking raids? What stopped their expansion? And how much of the tales of murder, rape and pillage is myth?

The Untold History of the Vikings

The Untold History of the Vikings PDF Author: Martin J. Dougherty
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1502619032
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beginning in 789AD, the Vikings raided monasteries, sacked cities and invaded western Europe. They looted and enslaved their enemies. But that is only part of their story. In long boats they discovered Iceland and America (both by accident) and also sailed up the Seine to Paris (which they sacked). They settled from Newfoundland to Russia, founded Dublin and fought battles as far afield as the Caspian Sea. A thousand years after their demise, traces of the Vikings remain all the way from North America to Istanbul. They traded walruses with Inuits, brought Russian furs to Western Europe and took European slaves to Constantinople. Their graves contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks and Frankish weapons. In this accessible book, the whole narrative of the Viking story is examined from the eighth to the 11th century. Arranged thematically, Vikings – A History of the Norse People, examines the Norsemen from exploration to religion to trade to settlement to weaponry to kingdoms to their demise and legacy. But today questions remain: what prompted the first Viking raids? What stopped their expansion? And how much of the tales of murder, rape and pillage is myth?

The Untold History of the Vikings

The Untold History of the Vikings PDF Author: Martin J. Dougherty
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1502619024
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Beginning in 789AD, the Vikings raided monasteries, sacked cities and invaded western Europe. They looted and enslaved their enemies. But that is only part of their story. In long boats they discovered Iceland and America (both by accident) and also sailed up the Seine to Paris (which they sacked). They settled from Newfoundland to Russia, founded Dublin and fought battles as far afield as the Caspian Sea. A thousand years after their demise, traces of the Vikings remain all the way from North America to Istanbul. They traded walruses with Inuits, brought Russian furs to Western Europe and took European slaves to Constantinople. Their graves contain Arab silver, Byzantine silks and Frankish weapons. In this accessible book, the whole narrative of the Viking story is examined from the eighth to the 11th century. Arranged thematically, Vikings – A History of the Norse People, examines the Norsemen from exploration to religion to trade to settlement to weaponry to kingdoms to their demise and legacy. But today questions remain: what prompted the first Viking raids? What stopped their expansion? And how much of the tales of murder, rape and pillage is myth?

Children of Ash and Elm

Children of Ash and Elm PDF Author: Neil Price
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465096999
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 629

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

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue PDF Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1592404944
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A survey of the quirks and quandaries of the English language, focusing on our strange and wonderful grammar Why do we say “I am reading a catalog” instead of “I read a catalog”? Why do we say “do” at all? Is the way we speak a reflection of our cultural values? Delving into these provocative topics and more, Our Magnificent Bastard Language distills hundreds of years of fascinating lore into one lively history. Covering such turning points as the little-known Celtic and Welsh influences on English, the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest, and the Germanic invasions that started it all during the fifth century ad, John McWhorter narrates this colorful evolution with vigor. Drawing on revolutionary genetic and linguistic research as well as a cache of remarkable trivia about the origins of English words and syntax patterns, Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue ultimately demonstrates the arbitrary, maddening nature of English— and its ironic simplicity due to its role as a streamlined lingua franca during the early formation of Britain. This is the book that language aficionados worldwide have been waiting for (and no, it’s not a sin to end a sentence with a preposition).

White Trash

White Trash PDF Author: Nancy Isenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110160848X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller A New York Times Notable and Critics’ Top Book of 2016 Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction One of NPR's 10 Best Books Of 2016 Faced Tough Topics Head On NPR's Book Concierge Guide To 2016’s Great Reads San Francisco Chronicle's Best of 2016: 100 recommended books A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2016 Globe & Mail 100 Best of 2016 “Formidable and truth-dealing . . . necessary.” —The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.” —O Magazine In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg upends history as we know it by taking on our comforting myths about equality and uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters who boosted Trump all the way to the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

Ancient Scandinavia

Ancient Scandinavia PDF Author: Theron Douglas Price
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190231971
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
Ancient Scandinavia provides a comprehensive overview of the archaeological history of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Women in the Viking Age

Women in the Viking Age PDF Author: Judith Jesch
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 0851153607
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Through runic inscriptions and behind the veil of myth, Jesch discovers the true story of viking women.

Viking Warriors

Viking Warriors PDF Author: Ben Hubbard
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 1502624567
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
In Viking Warriors, the Norse invaders, as infamous for their brutality as their exploration, come to life. Students will read about raids, battles, and key fighters and leaders. Illustrations, engravings, and relics depict the Norse culture, marine and combat technology, and fighting styles that gave them the advantage in battle. Maps and diagrams demonstrate their ambitious expansion and conquest of cities and people throughout the Northern hemisphere. With their far-reaching longships and fierce tactics, the influence and violence of the Vikings spread from America to the Middle East, leaving behind traces of an iconic culture and combative strategy.

TRUE MYTH

TRUE MYTH PDF Author: Nashid Al-Amin
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1466960035
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Why is it that encyclopedias assert the Vikings, or Norsemen, landed in parts of North America, yet the Vikings have never been credited with its "discovery"? Historians bestow this honor on Christopher Columbus, who ventured here five hundred years after the Vikings, having never set foot on the continent! True Myth: Black Vikings of the Middle Ages takes the reader where he or she has never been before. We have always been told that Vikings, or Norsemen, were tall, blond, white and blue-eyed--an image that has been presented to us in books and films. Now comes a book that challenges this centuries-old assertion, presenting evidence that these vaunted warriors were not the people popular historians have told us they were. The author presents evidence that white-skinned peoples in England, Ireland, and Wales referred to Vikings as black pagans and black devils. The extent of their dominance in Europe is examined--in fact, the author presents a reassessment of Europe that some readers will find difficult to believe, beginning with man's migrations into the continent and examining a number of black-skinned peoples who called Europe home from very ancient times almost to the present. The reader has never read a book like this--filled with quotations from noted historians as well as from several Icelandic sagas--that will take the reader on a journey he or she has never imagined! A more accurate picture of Europe has never been presented before. The writer revisits the last ice age, presents evidence of the heavy presence of blacks in ancient Europe, and revisits ancient Greece, Rome, and areas of Asia, discussing the presence of black-skinned peoples in them before arriving in Viking-age Scandinavia when Norsemen embarked on a three-century-long assault on the continent and began migrating to Iceland and other areas of North America. Once the reader has completed True Myth: Black Vikings of the Middle Ages, he or she will have to question what he or she has been taught, historians once thought to be trustworthy, and the notion that the races were strictly divided and had never intermingled. There has never been a truer picture of Europe written, and the reader now has the opportunity to embark on the most thrilling journey he or she will ever take.

The Viking Way

The Viking Way PDF Author: Neil S. Price
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
ISBN: 9781842172605
Category : Archaeology and religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.