A new history of the Vikings - told from their own perspective rather than that of their victims.
Neil Price holds the Chair of Archaeology at Uppsala University, Sweden, where he has also been appointed Distinguished Professor by the Swedish Research Council. A leading expert on the Viking Age, his fieldwork, teaching and research have taken him to more than forty countries. Neil is a Fellow of learned academies in Britain and Scandinavia, including Sweden's oldest, the Royal Society of Sciences; in 2017 it awarded him the Thureus Prize for his lifetime achievements in Viking studies. His publications have appeared in sixteen languages, and he is a frequent consultant and contributor to television and film.
Everybody thinks they know the Vikings, but Neil Price's magical
book casts them in an entirely new light ... Scholarly, colourful
and often remarkably funny, this is history at its very best, a
richly decorated window on to a very strange world.
*The Times Books of the Year*
as Neil Price shows in his colourful, revelatory new book, we are
almost always looking at the Vikings the wrong way around. Price is
one of the world's foremost experts on the Vikings and holds the
chair of archaeology at Uppsala University ... He may know more
about medieval Scandinavia than anyone else alive, and he aims to
show us these fascinating people as they saw themselves, not as
they were perceived by those on the sharp end of their robbery ...
Thousands of books have been published about the Vikings - this is
one of the very best.
*Sunday Times*
This history takes us deep into the lives - and deaths - of the
Vikings ... What surprised me about The Children of Ash and Elm is
the extent to which recent archaeological discovery is transforming
our picture of the Vikings from the inside. Price, who has spent
several decades in ancient cesspits and the remains of Norse
workshops, is superbly qualified to understand the significance of
what is being unearthed, analysed and dated, and conveys a sense of
excitement about just how much is being learnt
*The Times*
a book that offers delight after delight ... lyrical, unnerving,
specific, and passionately uncertain, all at once ... Throughout
this book are glorious collections of Viking facts that are
technically known yet still resist our best attempts at
interpretation ... Price has a talent for evoking the Vikings'
physical surroundings as they might have been - a gift for
recreation that's probably natural for an archaeologist accustomed
to eking significance from the smallest bit of disturbed dirt ...
To convey such a deep sense of scholarly indeterminacy, all while
dazzling the reader with cinematic detail-this is, truly, a
feat.
*Slate Magazine*
a thrilling read ... His clear, engaging style introduces us to the
Scandinavian communities of the eighth and ninth centuries,
centered around the farmstead, before catapulting us overseas and
outward into an expanding world where raiding and trading quickly
boosted the wealth of individuals and the ambitions of the elites.
... The stereotype of the Viking that we know from history books
and popular media is here dismantled and presented anew by Mr.
Price in all its wonderful, terrifying complexity and
ambiguity.
*Wall Street Journal*
This is a comprehensive, lyrically told and personal account of the
Viking Age, the product of more than thirty years of experience as
a leading archaeologist and researcher. Many books assess the
"Viking achievement". The Children of Ash and Elm examines instead
who the Vikings were, how they saw themselves and why they did what
they did ... no other history of the Vikings is as vibrant or
expands the scope of the Viking world to encompass not just
landscapes, but mindscapes.
*Times Literary Supplement*
a very human history of the period, one that is by turns
illuminating, surprising and even moving ... much of the beauty of
Price work is in its qualitative, sometimes subjective nature, even
while it remains a meticulously researched, rigorous piece of
scholarship.
*Literary Review*
The question that this dark, brilliantly written and absorbing book
asks is: who were these people and where did this violence come
from?...The powerful and unsettling message of this book is that
they never went home. These strange, vicious people are our
forebears. They never went home.
*Spectator*
It is full of meticulous accounts of the specifics of early
medieval Scandinavian daily life ... beautifully evocative,
engaging and thought-provoking ... It is impossible not to admire
the breadth and range of this book's discussion of Viking material
culture.
*History Today*
This book is the closest thing I have found to a time machine. It
brilliantly clears the fog of the past from the Viking era.
Extremely well written...if you are seeking an accessible, yet
definitive and up-to-date book on the Vikings, this is the one you
want.
*The Norwegian American*
Neil Price's The Children of Ash and Elm is an illuminating and
insightful tour of the Viking era; his narrative is composed from
his obvious expertise, and his utter passion. He loves this subject
and he wants to invite the reader to share his enthusiasm ...
Compelling, engaging, insightful and informative ... we couldn't
hope for a more entertaining or enlightening guide - Neil Price has
given us an exceptional book, and it is one to be treasured.
*Yorkshire Times*
Price is adept at bringing this cosmopolitan and brutal world to
life, interweaving many complicated strands of history with his own
experience in the field along with poetic meditations on a people
and time long since passed.
*The Paris Review*
fascinating
*TLS Books of the Year*
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