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Reviews tagging 'Slavery'
Vikingos. La historia definitiva de los pueblos del norte by Neil Price
9 reviews
crownoflaurel's review against another edition
4.25
Moderate: Slavery, Classism, Colonisation, Kidnapping, and Trafficking
Minor: Homophobia, Misogyny, and Sexism
_grace_c_'s review against another edition
3.5
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!)
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 against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Slavery and Rape
arcturus_b's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Slavery, Violence, and Rape
rebel_rocketman's review against another edition
4.75
Moderate: Violence, Misogyny, and Slavery
kamreadsandrecs's review against another edition
5.0
- 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.
Graphic: Slavery, Rape, and Physical abuse
beholderess's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Blood, and Sexism
zuleika's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Drug use, Animal death, Murder, Slavery, Animal cruelty, Rape, War, Genocide, Suicide, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Kidnapping, Homophobia, Domestic abuse, Death, and Child death
mugs_it_is's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Murder, Slavery, and Sexual assault