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ilovestory's review against another edition
5.0
Neil Oliver does a great job of taking you back to the time of the Vikings. His love for the Vikings comes through, though his book is a balanced one recognizing the flaws as well as the strengths of the men and women of the Viking era. His writing draws you in, and makes that time come alive as if it were yesterday. Highly recommend!
caroparr's review against another edition
4.0
If you, like me, haven't read a book about the Vikings yet, this is a good place to start. Oliver sets them into the context of their time and place (they were as well traveled as the Romans) in a wide-ranging narrative that goes from early prehistory up to 1066. Nicely sprinkled with a few personal anecdotes about his encounters with bog bodies, silver hoards and the haunting Birka Girl. I could wish for more photos, but I'm sure the TV series includes them all.
timwilson's review against another edition
2.0
Not great. As others have said, too many anecdotes.
It reads like someone ghost wrote this having only watched the TV series. We get long descriptions of him seeing artefacts of archaeological digs, riding a fake longboat, spending the night in a remade viking home. I'm sure that all worked well in a visual medium but not great in a book.
Got more interesting towards the end when we got to actual history and some facts were extraordinary (Vikings in Constantinople!). However, there must be better reads. This is quite a short book but it took a long time to slog through.
It reads like someone ghost wrote this having only watched the TV series. We get long descriptions of him seeing artefacts of archaeological digs, riding a fake longboat, spending the night in a remade viking home. I'm sure that all worked well in a visual medium but not great in a book.
Got more interesting towards the end when we got to actual history and some facts were extraordinary (Vikings in Constantinople!). However, there must be better reads. This is quite a short book but it took a long time to slog through.
thenovelbook's review against another edition
3.0
I read this in preparation for a museum exhibit I may attend soon. I like to know something about the subject of an exhibit before I get there; I find it greatly increases my enjoyment of the experience. (Should I admit to studying for going to a museum? I feel like this activity clearly labels me as something, but I'm cool with that.)
What I enjoyed most in this book were the author's personal expressions of following in Viking footsteps. Whether it was sleeping in a reconstructed Bronze Age house by himself, watching the progress of a modern day Viking ship along a waterway, or standing meditatively before the remains of various Viking burials, the author was obviously touched with a sense of awe, which is compelling to read about.
However, much of the book feels like very vague history. I suppose this is only natural when much of the Viking era took place without contemporary recorders of the history. I think I wanted more names and hard fast facts, and there were SOME, but more towards the end of the book.
At least I know now how Bluetooth got its name.
And, it was pretty cool reading about the Viking settlements on Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
What I enjoyed most in this book were the author's personal expressions of following in Viking footsteps. Whether it was sleeping in a reconstructed Bronze Age house by himself, watching the progress of a modern day Viking ship along a waterway, or standing meditatively before the remains of various Viking burials, the author was obviously touched with a sense of awe, which is compelling to read about.
However, much of the book feels like very vague history. I suppose this is only natural when much of the Viking era took place without contemporary recorders of the history. I think I wanted more names and hard fast facts, and there were SOME, but more towards the end of the book.
At least I know now how Bluetooth got its name.
And, it was pretty cool reading about the Viking settlements on Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
sweetsunshine83sc's review
It was just awful. Anecdotes that have nothing to do with what the book is supposedly about. Shoddy writing that seems all over the place. And 'historical facts' that are less 'facts' and more information twisted around to line up with his specific ideas of history and, in some cases, straight up opinions with no historical basis. I made it almost 50 pages in, which is a miracle, but I just couldn't put myself through the full 200+ pages of this book. This book is only the second book in my life that I have abandoned to a DNF.
georgedknight's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed this book and I must commend him for his wide analysis and focus, especially with his discussions of pre-historic Scandinavia, but I can't help agreeing with other reviewers when they critise his frequent asides. As much as I enjoy seeing history for his perspectives and experiences, I definitely feel like these descriptions could have been cut back and more detail provided. There are so many sources and details that could have been featured when instead the reader is enduring Neil Oliver's 70th long description of individual items, both remaining and lost, that he uses to illustrate wider points.
fil's review
3.0
Annoyingly not as advertised, it should have been titled 'Scandinavia And Its People'. Oliver begins at the very start of humanity's settlement of Denmark, Sweden and Norway and eventually gets to the Vikings. Despite this, and the author's personal digressions being very odd at times, a good, solid history of Scandinavians (and Vikings!). The author's style seems better suited to TV though, as if he'd look straight at the camera and chat about this or that, sometimes about a subject with a tenuous link to the matter at hand. All in all, good stuff.