A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland The '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.

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 Sami 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.

The Pacific War (1941-45), was characterised by a brutality and violence unmatched in any other theatre. Described by indigenous Micronesians as a ‘typhoon,’ the war was an unstoppable force that rolled across the islanders’ homes, leaving only a trail of destruction in its wake, with physical, psychological, and cultural impacts that continue to resonate today. This difficult period is examined in a variety of ways through chapters that include targeted studies of archaeological sites, wider surveys of battlefield landscapes, and the ways in which we commemorate the experiences and legacies of both combatants and civilian populations. The translation of important research by Okinawan, Japanese, and Russian archaeologists bring regions that have previously been neglected in Anglophone literature into focus and enrich this comprehensive exploration of the archaeology of the Pacific War. This book will be of interest to archaeological practitioners, students, and members of the general public working in conflict studies or with an interest in the material culture, history, and legacies of the Pacific War.

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 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.

The Pacific War (1941-45), was characterised by a brutality and violence unmatched in any other theatre. Described by indigenous Micronesians as a ‘typhoon,’ the war was an unstoppable force that rolled across the islanders’ homes, leaving only a trail of destruction in its wake, with physical, psychological, and cultural impacts that continue to resonate today. This difficult period is examined in a variety of ways through chapters that include targeted studies of archaeological sites, wider surveys of battlefield landscapes, and the ways in which we commemorate the experiences and legacies of both combatants and civilian populations. The translation of important research by Okinawan, Japanese, and Russian archaeologists bring regions that have previously been neglected in Anglophone literature into focus and enrich this comprehensive exploration of the archaeology of the Pacific War. This book will be of interest to archaeological practitioners, students, and members of the general public working in conflict studies or with an interest in the material culture, history, and legacies of the Pacific War.

Author Biography:
Neil Price is a Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Uppsala, Sweden. He has written extensively on the Viking Age, and has conducted research projects in France, Iceland, Russia and Sápmi (Lappland).

In this timely collection, Neil Price provides a general introduction to the archaeology of shamanism by bringing together recent archaeological thought on the subject. Blending theoretical discussion with detailed case studies, the issues addressed include shamanic material culture, responses to dying and the dead, shamanic soundscapes, the use of ritual architecture and shamanism in the context of other belief systems such as totemism. Following an intial orientation reviewing shamanism as an anthropological construct, the volume focuses on the Northern hemisphere with case studies from Greenland to Nepal, Siberia to Kazakhstan. The papers span a chronological range from Upper Palaeolithic to the present and explore such cross-cutting themes as gender and the body, identity, landscape, architecture, as well as shamanic interpretations of rock art and shamanism in the heritage and cultural identity of indigenous peoples. The volume also addresses the interpretation of shamanic beliefs in terms of cognitive neuroscience and the modern public perception of prehistoric shamanism.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field. Bringing together today's leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Brink and Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted.
Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest -- specific sites or finds, crucial written sources or the results of the latest individual research projects -- this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, andlinks with medieval and Christian Europe.
Conceived and assembled in Scandinavia, with a marked international flavour, this original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field.

Bringing together today 's leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Stefan Brink and Neil Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted.

Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest, this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, and links with medieval and Christian Europe.

This original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period, and beyond the stereotypical Viking raider. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe and in the process transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society and economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later and, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians. In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period, and beyond the stereotypical Viking raider. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe and in the process transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society and economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later and, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.