Scan barcode
bookwormie's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
A truly exhaustive and impressive book dissecting the changing written and oral narratives, myths, and cultural ideas of "first contact". The level of research for this book reminds me of 1491 and is very academic and likely an important resource for historical scholars. I was a bit lost at the poem chapter and was rough to get through in parts because of the author's writing style- it could use some editing and refocusing in parts. I learned a lot!
greenrain's review against another edition
4.0
This book is about the Viking exploration of North America and how Anglo-Americans have used that history to suit their needs at different points in time. Two Icelandic Sagas that deal with the Viking exploration of Greenland and the North American continent (the "Vineland" in the title) are used as both literary and historical texts to give context to the information laid out later in the book. What follows is a discussion about the nineteenth century Anglo-American response to the English translation of these texts and the many historical and literary books that sprung from America's need to feel as antiquated as Europe. Issues of race, religion, and immigration are viewed through this lens. The book ends with an interesting yet brief section about the Native American stories that tell of first contact with Europeans in New England and Eastern Canada (an area referred to as "Dawnland" in the title).
The middle section of this book that deals with the Anglo-American response is lengthy and a little repetitive. The author lays out the arguments and works written by a particular person, telling us why the conclusions were wrong and what impact those views had on American culture. Instead of moving onto a different point of view, several other people's opinions and writings are dissected which are almost identical to the original person being discussed. I would have preferred being told "Mr. A, Mr. B, and Ms. C all had similar viewpoints and wrote extensively about the matter (see footnote for list of works)." I felt like I was being hit over the head with the same brick over and over, even though I understood the concept quite well. This is an academic work, so it's the nature of the beast, I suppose.
Overall, this was a very interesting read about a subject that I find fascinating. I would have preferred much more about the Native American early contact stories and more about their response to the Viking issue, but that just shows how interested I was in the work.
I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
The middle section of this book that deals with the Anglo-American response is lengthy and a little repetitive. The author lays out the arguments and works written by a particular person, telling us why the conclusions were wrong and what impact those views had on American culture. Instead of moving onto a different point of view, several other people's opinions and writings are dissected which are almost identical to the original person being discussed. I would have preferred being told "Mr. A, Mr. B, and Ms. C all had similar viewpoints and wrote extensively about the matter (see footnote for list of works)." I felt like I was being hit over the head with the same brick over and over, even though I understood the concept quite well. This is an academic work, so it's the nature of the beast, I suppose.
Overall, this was a very interesting read about a subject that I find fascinating. I would have preferred much more about the Native American early contact stories and more about their response to the Viking issue, but that just shows how interested I was in the work.
I won this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
otterno11's review
4.0
A few years ago, I listened to Professor Annette Kolodny give a presentation on the background of her research for her book In Search of First Contact and the contact between Norse and indigenous Americans in North America at the University of Minnesota and picked up a copy. After the fascinating lecture, I was definitely looking forward to reading it and, now that I’ve finally gotten around to reading it, it did not disappoint!
In Search of First Contact is an informative, exhaustive analysis of changing Euro-American attitudes towards the idea that the medieval Norse had visited the North American continent and encountered the people that lived there, centuries before the great “Age of Exploration” that led to the European domination of the Americas. Annette Kolodny delves deeply into the cultural ideas of what this “first contact” entailed, and how it was seen by Euro-Americans and indigenous people alike. What happened when the Norse first visited North America and encountered its people? Did it have any lasting effect on either? Where did these encounters take place? Questions such as these address the long-standing internal debate by Euro-American intellectuals and the public alike, trying to justify their own existence on a land that had been, centuries earlier, someone else's. In this book, Kolody sheds a lot of light onto how stories of earlier contacts have been framed to serve changing purposes throughout time.
Using the medieval documents of the Vinland Sagas, Euro-American literature from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and the preserved oral cultures of Algonquian peoples, she examines how these stories of the Norse visit were used to to reflect cultural changes and anxieties among these groups. Kolodny explores this by focusing on the history of speculation as to a Norse presence somewhere on the continent a thousand years before, and how this “first contact” narrative was used, later, to justify and cement the Northern European presence on the continent. Especially after the formation of the United States, Euro-Americans began searching for ways to link themselves to an older legacy in the so-called New World and downplay the importance of indigenous people.
Kolodny does a wonderful job using the literature of the time to illustrate these changes through time, including a slightly over long but interesting analysis of the Vinland Sagas, the pieces of medieval Icelandic literature that preserved older oral histories of Norse travels in the western Atlantic. After a resurgence of nationalism in Scandinavian countries brought the existence of the “Vinland Sagas” to the attention of educated Americans, especially New Englanders, this purported earlier colonization sparked their imagination. Throughout New England, Euro-Americans manufactured and found evidence that located Vinland (and their “ancestors”) right there in the heart of the colonies, in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and Maine. As experts had already decided that the great mounds and other earth works could not be the work of indigenous peoples, the Norse were a convenient origin, making the white conquest of the continent a “reconquest.”
In addition to the American responses to the Scandinavian studies of the Vinland sagas, Kolodny looks at the poetry and writings of some of the literary luminaries of New England, including Longfellow and Lowell, as they wrestled with a purported Norse past and their guilt regarding the “inevitable” fate of indigenous Americans (extinction or cultural assimilation). At the same time, the myths surrounding the discovery of Christopher Columbus began to coalesce, leading to a debate among Euro-Americans as to who was the more important “spiritual founder” to base their concepts of American society upon. Finally, Kolodny closes with discussion of a few of the oral histories and stories from some Algonquian sources, and ponders their significance in framing the first encounters between them and Europeans through their own cultures, and the changes that would result once European nations, unlike the Norse, began to commence colonization efforts. All in all, a thought provoking work, and a very important resource for scholars and those interested in American cultural studies, immigration in US history, and the encounter between different cultural groups.
Even in the years after the discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows, these conversations have continued and during her presentation at the U of M, this, of course, came up. Kolodny also discusses some of the apocryphal artifacts that were brought forward to strengthen the case of the Norse inhabiting the borders of the US, the Newport Tower in Rhode Island, Maine’s Spirit Pond Runestones, and Minnesota’s own Kensington Runestone. While she focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, these contradictions and debates have continued to roil today in much the same way Kolodny explores in her analysis. Many Euro-Americans continue to insist upon a greater and more important past in North America and this book is a great place to begin studying this contradictory and troubling legacy.
In Search of First Contact is an informative, exhaustive analysis of changing Euro-American attitudes towards the idea that the medieval Norse had visited the North American continent and encountered the people that lived there, centuries before the great “Age of Exploration” that led to the European domination of the Americas. Annette Kolodny delves deeply into the cultural ideas of what this “first contact” entailed, and how it was seen by Euro-Americans and indigenous people alike. What happened when the Norse first visited North America and encountered its people? Did it have any lasting effect on either? Where did these encounters take place? Questions such as these address the long-standing internal debate by Euro-American intellectuals and the public alike, trying to justify their own existence on a land that had been, centuries earlier, someone else's. In this book, Kolody sheds a lot of light onto how stories of earlier contacts have been framed to serve changing purposes throughout time.
Using the medieval documents of the Vinland Sagas, Euro-American literature from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and the preserved oral cultures of Algonquian peoples, she examines how these stories of the Norse visit were used to to reflect cultural changes and anxieties among these groups. Kolodny explores this by focusing on the history of speculation as to a Norse presence somewhere on the continent a thousand years before, and how this “first contact” narrative was used, later, to justify and cement the Northern European presence on the continent. Especially after the formation of the United States, Euro-Americans began searching for ways to link themselves to an older legacy in the so-called New World and downplay the importance of indigenous people.
Kolodny does a wonderful job using the literature of the time to illustrate these changes through time, including a slightly over long but interesting analysis of the Vinland Sagas, the pieces of medieval Icelandic literature that preserved older oral histories of Norse travels in the western Atlantic. After a resurgence of nationalism in Scandinavian countries brought the existence of the “Vinland Sagas” to the attention of educated Americans, especially New Englanders, this purported earlier colonization sparked their imagination. Throughout New England, Euro-Americans manufactured and found evidence that located Vinland (and their “ancestors”) right there in the heart of the colonies, in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and Maine. As experts had already decided that the great mounds and other earth works could not be the work of indigenous peoples, the Norse were a convenient origin, making the white conquest of the continent a “reconquest.”
In addition to the American responses to the Scandinavian studies of the Vinland sagas, Kolodny looks at the poetry and writings of some of the literary luminaries of New England, including Longfellow and Lowell, as they wrestled with a purported Norse past and their guilt regarding the “inevitable” fate of indigenous Americans (extinction or cultural assimilation). At the same time, the myths surrounding the discovery of Christopher Columbus began to coalesce, leading to a debate among Euro-Americans as to who was the more important “spiritual founder” to base their concepts of American society upon. Finally, Kolodny closes with discussion of a few of the oral histories and stories from some Algonquian sources, and ponders their significance in framing the first encounters between them and Europeans through their own cultures, and the changes that would result once European nations, unlike the Norse, began to commence colonization efforts. All in all, a thought provoking work, and a very important resource for scholars and those interested in American cultural studies, immigration in US history, and the encounter between different cultural groups.
Even in the years after the discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows, these conversations have continued and during her presentation at the U of M, this, of course, came up. Kolodny also discusses some of the apocryphal artifacts that were brought forward to strengthen the case of the Norse inhabiting the borders of the US, the Newport Tower in Rhode Island, Maine’s Spirit Pond Runestones, and Minnesota’s own Kensington Runestone. While she focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, these contradictions and debates have continued to roil today in much the same way Kolodny explores in her analysis. Many Euro-Americans continue to insist upon a greater and more important past in North America and this book is a great place to begin studying this contradictory and troubling legacy.
More...