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_grace_c_'s review
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
3.5
You think you've a vague grasp on "Vikings" from the movies you've watched until you read this book; Neil Price hightlights that we can't just project our present views and concepts onto the people of the past and thereby explain away all of their actions. He challenges a mountain of questionable ideological assumptions that have been forced upon archeological finds and historical sources and shows how assumptions and previously made conclusions have stunted our ability to understand their world.
This book doesn't just come from the angle of 'Who were the Vikings?' but also 'What was it like to be these Vikings?' Price has written an immensely detailed book using the archeological finds from the period and openly discusses these findings without having to make adamant assumptions to fill in the blanks of time. Price didn't hide from the horrors that played out in the Viking Age and discusses these topics with emotion and transparency.
This was my first history book and overall I enjoyed it; incredibly informative although the interest did come in waves at times with such lengthy chapters. It taught me so many side's of the Vikings that I would never of considered (like how many sheep they required to sustain the diaspora!)
This book doesn't just come from the angle of 'Who were the Vikings?' but also 'What was it like to be these Vikings?' Price has written an immensely detailed book using the archeological finds from the period and openly discusses these findings without having to make adamant assumptions to fill in the blanks of time. Price didn't hide from the horrors that played out in the Viking Age and discusses these topics with emotion and transparency.
This was my first history book and overall I enjoyed it; incredibly informative although the interest did come in waves at times with such lengthy chapters. It taught me so many side's of the Vikings that I would never of considered (like how many sheep they required to sustain the diaspora!)
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence, Sexual assault, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Animal death, Child death, Death, Sexual violence, Incest, Rape, War, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Kidnapping, Infidelity, Animal cruelty, and Slavery
rainershine's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery and Rape
arcturus_b's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Violence, and Rape
kamreadsandrecs's review
dark
informative
slow-paced
5.0
VERY good book, highly informative. Dry in places, but has a few moments of levity. I appreciated how the author emphasized breaking myths about the Vikings, and was especially keen to emphasize that:
- The Vikings owned slaves, and participated actively in the slave trade of the time - not just buying slaves, but capturing people and selling them too. The book refused to sugarcoat any of this and has some utterly brutal passages about how the Vikings practiced slavery. There was also a lot about how the success of the Vikings could also be attributed to their practice of slavery, and how their economy depended heavily on it. Also refused to call the slaves anything but slaves; author seemed to say that the use of the word "thrall" was a bit of a smokescreen.
- Not all Vikings were blond-haired and blue-eyed, as the Victorians and the Nazis believed. The Vikings were far more cosmopolitan, with the idea of “Viking” being more an identity which one could take up under specific circumstances regardless of where one originally came from. “Vikings” could come from any region of the world which the Vikings visited. Also the Vikings (probably very likely) weren’t racist in the sense that they cast judgment on a person based on the color of their skin. In fact this book spends a lot of time breaking the racist notions surrounding how Vikings have been and are still interpreted and used.
- The idea of Viking women being “independent women” as we would perceive it in the 21st century is...well, more complicated than that (which is only as it should be). While there’s increasing evidence that women did participate in matters of politics and war, the women who did tended to be the exception rather than the rule; Viking society was actually very, VERY patriarchal and women had little power outside of the spheres of life that belonged to them. By that token though, they were actually quite powerful and deeply respected WITHIN the spheres that belonged to them, and their work was not looked down-upon by the men - something which only came later, with the introduction of Christianity. The author also states that the Vikings practiced exposure of girl children (thus indicating that girls were less valued than boys in Viking society), and that domestic abuse was VERY widespread - to the point that one of the law codes dictated what sorts of punishments could be meted out to an abuser BASED ON THE TYPE OF INJURIES SUSTAINED, OF WHICH THERE WAS APPARENTLY A LONG AND VERY DETAILED LIST.
Enjoyed the author's his overall tone too! Quite dry, but then he was clearly going for Serious Educational Text for the most part. But when the snark comes out? Golden! Wish he did it more often, might’ve helped mitigate some of the monotony of the overall text. But again, I can kind of understand why he didn’t do it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Rape, and Physical abuse
zuleika's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
3.0
Why I embarked on this 600+ page history of the Vikings I cannot tell you. Interesting aspects include Viking queerness, diversity in Scandinavia and the bits about chess. Unpleasant aspects include graphic descriptions of human sacrifice. I don’t think this will be a reread.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Animal death, Murder, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Rape, War, Genocide, Suicide, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Death, and Child death
mollyadele's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape and Alcohol
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