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A review by caterinaanna
Vikings by Neil Oliver
4.0
Before reading this book I reckon that what I knew about the Vikings was fairly typical: their raids on monasteries on the East coast of Britain, their settlements in York and Dublin, the Danelaw & battles with Alfred the Great, the voyages to Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland. I even knew that the Normans were not-long-before Vikings and the contributions of their languages to the English tongue. Oh and their mythology, I knew some of that too. Seems quite a lot, doesn't it? But it's hardly anything really when compared to the back-to-the-ice-age history of an archaeologist and the less insular view of someone determined to tell the story of an entire people.
So, lots of fascinating information. Oliver has a real fondness for the people and succeeds in showing them in a more rounded fashion and as far more significant players on the world stage than most of us realise. However, when descending to the level of individuals, his imaginations are sometimes rather sentimental and it is quite obviously a book of a television series. By that I mean there's an awful lot of descriptions of places, people and artefacts. Some of them are good, even evocative, but others are no substitute for a picture, and there aren't quite enough of those. Also, there are sections of recap, out-of-chronological sequence storytelling or geographical skips which you can see are designed to hook someone in to a particular thread. Of course, history is not a simple, linear narrative and these techniques are therefore not limited to visual media, but here they made their presence felt rather than supporting my understanding.
Overall, it was a very readable book from which I learnt things but didn't feel patronised when reading about things I already knew, so that makes it rather good, doesn't it?
So, lots of fascinating information. Oliver has a real fondness for the people and succeeds in showing them in a more rounded fashion and as far more significant players on the world stage than most of us realise. However, when descending to the level of individuals, his imaginations are sometimes rather sentimental and it is quite obviously a book of a television series. By that I mean there's an awful lot of descriptions of places, people and artefacts. Some of them are good, even evocative, but others are no substitute for a picture, and there aren't quite enough of those. Also, there are sections of recap, out-of-chronological sequence storytelling or geographical skips which you can see are designed to hook someone in to a particular thread. Of course, history is not a simple, linear narrative and these techniques are therefore not limited to visual media, but here they made their presence felt rather than supporting my understanding.
Overall, it was a very readable book from which I learnt things but didn't feel patronised when reading about things I already knew, so that makes it rather good, doesn't it?