[.ca] Vikings (ISBN 1560989955)

From Amazon.com:
In the early Middle Ages, driven by famine at home and the promise of wealth to be had in other lands, the Viking people exploded out of Scandinavia and set about conquering parts of England, Ireland, France, Russia, and even Turkey. Emboldened by their successes, the Vikings pushed ever farther outward, eventually crossing the North Atlantic and founding settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and eastern Canada. In The Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, some three dozen scholars examine the growing archaeological evidence of the Viking presence in the New World--including such items as a Norse coin excavated in Maine, runic stones from the Canadian Arctic, and farming implements found in Newfoundland. The contributors consider the sometimes friendly, sometimes warlike history of Viking interactions with the native peoples of northeastern North America (whom the Norse called skraelings, or "screamers"); compare the archaeological record with contemporary sagas and other records of exploration; and argue for the need to better document the Viking contribution to New World history. "As an historical and cultural achievement," write the editors, "the Viking Age and its North American medieval extension stand out as one of the most remarkable periods in human history." This oversized, heavily illustrated volume celebrates that little-understood time. --Gregory McNamee

This gorgeous Viking book ranks with the best:
What a complete package! Absolutely loaded with huge beautiful pictures of everything from ancient maps to medieval Scandinavian jewelry to charts of what individual experts think the Vikings dubbed "Vinland", this book has it all. Someone familiar with the subject will find it gorgeously re-introduced in this extremely professional layout, and yet anyone new to the subject will find this book to be inviting, informative, and fun to read. While this book doesn't dig quite as deep as either Jones' textbook-format "A History of The Vikings" or Haywood's geographically well-documented "The Penguin Historical Atlas of The Vikings", this is still like a huge compilation of every other Viking book I've seen yet, giving the subject the spotlight that it needs after so many recent discoveries. A very professional complete package for everyone.

A touchdown:
If you know only a little about Vikings, and want to know a lot more, this is the book to get. Lavishly illustrated, although, as another reader pointed out, a little big for bedtime reading or the train. I really liked the way the book recalls the entire Norse history -- from the 700s right up to the Minnesota Vikings. By the way, I got to sail for a couple days on the very ship depicted on the cover.

A great start:
This great book takes you from western Europe and Russia to L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland in a gigantic arc of detail and archaeology. Many areas of great intrest such as the Isle of Man and the Shetland Isles are often overlooked in OTHER books but not this one. If you want to start learning about the Vikings disembark from here.

A Great Resource!!!:
For those interested in: the history of an ancient people, the Vikings the history of a people's travels and explorations the history of a people's art, storytelling, and craftsmanship the history of a people's society and everyday living This book is for you. I constantly use references from this book in my writings, as it contains such detail that is just begging to be acknowledged. The images are fantastic, and continues to inspire! Historical enthusiasts, novice and veterans alike are sure to enjoy this book.

A 'Must Have' but not the complete answer.:
"Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga" is a book which should be on the shelves of any ordinary person who is seriously interested in the subject. Having said that I should warn potential buyers that the book is written by a number of authors of differing views. Readers should not just pick bits and pieces out of it but carefully read the whole. As would be expected, the book leans to the view of conservative scholarship, that the only proved contact between Vikings and North America is that of L'Anse aux Meadows, but some contributors seem to feel this means they must deny the possibility of any other contact and in my opinion they go overboard. For example, a strong attack with all the old gossip is mounted on the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone but what is not riddled with errors has by and large already been refuted. Surely too it was not necessary to describe R.A. Hall jnr, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Cornell, who for nearly thirty years has been one of the strongest supporters of the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone, as an 'amateur'. Nor was it reasonable to refer only to his 1982 book while omitting reference to his "The Kensington Rune-stone: Authentic and Important" published in 1994. In the attempt to protect received history, no mention was made of the probability that some of the survivors of the fourteen ships which went missing from Eric the Red's voyage of settlement to Greenland made it instead to North America and took residence amongst the natives. Similarly lacking is any mention that in the course of returning from his original voyage of discovery Lief Ericsson rescued Thorer and his crew who had been wrecked in the waters between Vinland and Greenland. Thorer's ship had been carrying timber which possibly came from North America and suggests prior knowledge of that country. Biarne Grimolfson perished in the 'Irish Ocean' when his ship was attacked and sunk by Teredo worms. The survivors reached Dublin in the ship's boat. This points to direct Atlantic crossings at a very early date but no mention of this or the implications of this advanced navigational knowledge was made in the book. The theories of Farley Mowat about pre-Viking European contact with North America are misrepresented as being about contact by early Norse when anyone who has read his book "The Farfarers" will know that Mowat proposed early North American contact by people other than the Norse. In some sections of the book the reader is not being told the full story. In this and similar respects I think the book does the reader a disservice. Nevertheless, my view of this book is by no means entirely negative and I believe it should be on the shelves of anyone with a general interest in Vikings and the North Atlantic. My primary concern is that the reader should be aware that like the 'curates egg' - "parts of it are excellent".