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Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Hardcover – Illustrated, August 25, 2020

by Neil Price (Author)

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The definitive history of the Vikings -- from arts and culture to politics and cosmology -- by a distinguished archaeologist with decades of expertise

The Viking Age -- from 750 to 1050 -- saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.

Based on the latest archaeological and textual evidence, Children of Ash and Elm tells the story of the Vikings on their own terms: their politics, their cosmology and religion, their material world. Known today for a stereotype of maritime violence, the Vikings exported new ideas, technologies, beliefs, and practices to the lands they discovered and the peoples they encountered, and in the process were themselves changed. From Eirík Bloodaxe, who fought his way to a kingdom, to Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the most traveled woman in the world, Children of Ash and Elm is the definitive history of the Vikings and their time.

Print length

624 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

August 25, 2020
Dimensions

6.5 x 2.25 x 9.7 inches
ISBN-10

0465096980
ISBN-13

978-0465096985
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A thrilling read....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. By clarifying the long-reaching effects of Scandinavian influence, Children of Ash and Elm brings a dramatically altered understanding of the Viking Age to a wider international audience."―Wall Street Journal

“Not the least of Price’s achievement is to rescue Viking history from the grasp of white supremacists who claim a specious lineage with it. He does so not by asserting any sort of moral superiority for the Vikings—theirs was a brutal society that practiced human sacrifice and slavery, as Price makes abundantly clear—but by restoring their rich and strange particularity….I’ll long remember Price’s evocation of the wafer-thin squares of gold, stamped with images of otherworldly beings, that adorned the great halls where visitors drank and fought and recited poetry. Firelight would have animated those static images. Price has done something similar here.”―Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker, The Best Books We Read in 2020

“Price, a Sweden-based archaeologist and academic, 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.”
―Rhian Sasseen, Paris Review (Staff Pick)

"As Neil Price shows in his colorful, revelatory new book, we are almost always looking at the Vikings the wrong way around.... 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 (UK)

“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 (UK), Best History Book of the Year

“Not only a leading authority on the period, Price is also a wonderful writer, by turns philosophical, witty, lyrical and poignant. He possesses both an archaeologist’s ability to interpret large quantities of scholarship and data, and the skill to translate it creatively. His vivid prose illuminates both the physical and the psychological dimensions of the early medieval north, while at the same time leaving space for uncertainty: the possibility of future discoveries and theories that will alter the picture yet again…. The writing hums with life as Price summons up the voices of the past.”―Guardian

“A wonderful read, with prose that flows like poetry in places and modern analogs that inspire creative thinking....This volume would make an excellent textbook and a splendid introduction to the world of the Vikings for any reader.”
―Science

"I fell in love with Neil Price's comprehensive new history of the Vikings.... [Price] hits major high points, while also introducing nonspecialists to the major questions that those who know a lot about Vikings still consider unresolved.... Dazzle[s] the reader with cinematic detail."―Slate

“A profound meditation on culture, ritual and what it means to be human.”―Allegra Goodman, The Week

“Outstanding….This is as much a history of mindsets as of significant names and dates….Price constructs a very human history of the period….Yield[s] new insights into the complex nature of Viking culture.”
―Literary Review (UK)

“A comprehensive, lyrically told and personal account of the Viking Age….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

“Copious documentation and the latest archaeological findings gird a new history of the Vikings, which broadens the narrative beyond the violent warrior image. Neil Price explores what is known about Viking society and culture, and its impact on the peoples and lands that were conquered.”―Christian Science Monitor

“Price fleshes out Viking culture, often by focusing on the material realities of their day-to-day lives....What Price attempts to do with Children of Ash and Elm is to strip away the cultural sediment that has built up around the idea of the Vikings and return us to the archaeological record itself....What we’re left with are fewer illusions and a much more interesting mystery.”―Washington Examiner

“A wide-ranging and engaging account of the Viking Age. Never shirking from the cruelties enacted by the Vikings, Price has a knack for picking up on prosaic details to tell a bold story of a society dramatically different from our own.”―Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir, History Today

“Neil Price has spent his career excavating Viking-era artifacts and remains. Now the chair of archeology at the Swedish university at Uppsala, this English-born academic reveals a knack too few in his field share. Over 500 pages of narrative, he skillfully blends extended discussions of the recent finds at settlement and burial sites with his own anecdotes, reflections and investigations.”―Spectrum Culture

“Thorough, readable....Serves as a model for how modern science can add to historical scholarship and storytelling. The research is thoroughly documented and the book well-illustrated.”
―New York Journal of Books

“This spectacular book is more than traditional history, as many of its surprising–often strange–revelations about Viking life come not from texts, but archaeology. Price guides us through their vast world, studding his grand narrative with extraordinary details: isotopic identification of Scandinavian skeletons in Russia, silk caps from York and Lincoln probably from the same Byzantine bale, and a candle burning until the air inside a burial chamber ran out.”
―BBC Science Focus (UK), Best Books We Read in 2020

“Children of Ash and Elm is the culmination of decades of academic writing and field research by Price. It is a broadly accessible, archaeologically informed account of one of the most deeply mythologized groups in human history.”―Russell Kirk Center

“Capturing the full and rich nuances of the Viking Age, Neil Price's Children of Ash and Elm offers a sweeping account of the famous Scandinavian culture that stretched from North America to the Asian Steppes....Price relies on archeological and textual evidence to move past stereotypes and reveal the Vikings as never before.”―Explore the Archive, 12 Best History Books of 2020

“One of the most comprehensive treatises on the Norse to date….This book brings together a wide body of scholarship that makes the world of the Vikings all the more comprehensible.”
―The Explorers Journal

“Price brings an enthusiastic, encyclopaedic knowledge to the Viking Age....Children of Ash and Elm will reward the casual reader as well as serve the serious student looking for a better understanding of who the Vikings were, what drove them, and the effects they had on the world around them.”
―Winnipeg Free Press

“A comprehensive and highly readable history of the Vikings.”
―Swedish Press

“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.”
―Norwegian American

"Majestic.... Children of Ash and Elm illuminates the brutal realities of Viking raids, of course, but its revelatory power comes from its focus on the culture that built and launched those ships, an industrial feat more impressive than the pillaging.... Price's stripping away of Viking cliché still leaves warriors worthy of the songs -- they're just people now, too."―Shelf Awareness

"The breadth and thoroughness of Price's research impresses. Readers interested in Viking culture should consider this monumental history a must-read."―Publishers Weekly

"Elegantly conceived, constantly surprising...With clarity and verve, Price examines various aspects of Viking society...An exemplary history that gives a nuanced view of a society long reduced to a few clichés."―Kirkus (starred review)

"An immense undertaking from an expert who has studied the Vikings for almost 35 years, this is a masterful piece of work that seeks to present the historical Vikings as distinct from the caricatures of pop culture.... An engaging and engrossing read. Exhaustively researched using cross-disciplinary resources, this breathtaking, epic history will appeal to all types of readers."―Library Journal

"As vivid as it is learned, as thrillingly cutting edge as it is deep-rooted in the distant past, this is as brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read."―Tom Holland, author of Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

"Neil Price offers a spirited account of the Vikings from unexpected angles, and brilliantly succeeds in seeing the world from their perspective rather than from that of the people whose lands suffered from Viking raids. He shows that this was a world in which gods, spirits and humans co-existed and one in which the savagery of warfare was counter-balanced by peaceful settlement as far away as Greenland and briefly North America."―David Abulafia, professor emeritus of Mediterranean history, University of Cambridge, and author of The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans

About the Author

Neil Price is distinguished professor and chair of archaeology at Uppsala University, Sweden. He has been researching, teaching, and writing on the Vikings for nearly thirty-five years and is the author of several books on the history of the Viking Age. He lives in Sweden.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; Illustrated edition (August 25, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 624 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465096980
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465096985
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 2.25 x 9.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #70,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Norway History
- #6 in Sweden History
- #101 in Expeditions & Discoveries World History (Books)

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Erik Peterson

Children of Ash and Elm

Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a good read for those of you who want to learn more about the Vikings and their times from a current archaeological point-of-view.

Scientific measurements are getting more precise and nuanced all the time. Genetic traces can identify ethnicities and genders of persons long dead (A few surprises here), and radiocarbon isotopes can tell you where a person was born and raised, where they lived as an adult, and of course we already know (habeas corpus) where they died.

We also have relatively new insights about the effects of certain natural catastrophies on matters such as climate change - it is now thought that a series of unusually large volcanic eruptions which occurred in the 6th century A.D. in southeastern Asia may have kicked up enough dust around the planet to cause the climate to cool precipitously for up to eighty years - an event which apparently caused a large scale die off of the Scandinavian population due to agricultural collapse, and which was the motivating driver behind the ‘Migration Period’, when northern peoples went south crashing into the Roman frontier in order to survive the cold-induced famine.

The author also has some cautionary notes about what our northern friends were really like. One of my favorites was:

‘When one looks closer, the real power,and the means of producing it, can take unexpected forms. Some years ago, a prominent historian despaired of the constant focus on the Vikings as maritime warriors, and instead stressed the fact that most of the Scandinavian population stayed at home on the land and never did any harm to anyone. The time of the Vikings, he claimed, was really ‘the Golden Age of the pig farmer.’ He had a point, though he got the animal wrong: The Scandinavian landscape of the late Viking period was a world of sheep.’ (For making ship’s sails and warm clothing)

Also, everything hideous that the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan described with regard to that gang of Russian Volga Vikings he met up with has been shown archeologically to be more or less true.

Bottom line is, Tolkien’s stories are about Vikings and their religion the way they should have been, not the way they actually were.

PS. The author (Neil Price) is an engaging and informative speaker, and has lectures on this subject readily available on You-tube.

31 people found this helpful

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eric linn

Fascinating and Informative

Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2023

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This book was a great read. Filled with loads of information that I had never heard before.

3 people found this helpful

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/recon

Vivid and Thought-Provoking: A 4-Star Review of 'Children of Ash and Elm

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2024

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hildren of Ash and Elm by Neil Price is an ambitious exploration of the Viking Age, offering a sweeping narrative that delves into the complexities of Viking society, culture, and worldview. As a history enthusiast with a particular interest in the Norsemen and their legacy, I approached this book with eager anticipation. While it may not be without its flaws, it undoubtedly stands as a remarkable achievement in the field of Viking studies.

One of the most striking aspects of Children of Ash and Elm is its vivid and evocative prose. Price demonstrates a remarkable ability to bring the past to life, painting a rich tapestry of Viking Age society that is both immersive and captivating. From the windswept shores of Scandinavia to the bustling trade routes of the Mediterranean, readers are transported to a world teeming with life, color, and adventure.

Moreover, Price's meticulous research and attention to detail shine through in every chapter of the book. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources, archaeological evidence, and comparative analysis, he presents a comprehensive and nuanced portrait of Viking society. Whether discussing the intricacies of Norse mythology, the dynamics of Viking-age politics, or the daily lives of ordinary men and women, Price's insights are both enlightening and thought-provoking.

Furthermore, Children of Ash and Elm challenges many preconceived notions about the Vikings, offering a more balanced and nuanced perspective on this enigmatic civilization. Rather than portraying them as mere raiders and plunderers, Price emphasizes the diversity and complexity of Viking culture, highlighting their contributions to art, literature, exploration, and trade. By examining the Vikings on their own terms, he invites readers to reconsider their assumptions and confront the complexities of the past.

However, while Children of Ash and Elm excels in many areas, it is not without its shortcomings. At times, the sheer breadth of material covered in the book can feel overwhelming, making it difficult for readers to fully digest and absorb the information presented. Additionally, Price's writing style, while eloquent and engaging, may be overly dense and academic for some readers, potentially limiting its accessibility to a broader audience.

In conclusion, Children of Ash and Elm is a monumental work that offers a compelling and comprehensive exploration of the Viking Age. With its vivid prose, meticulous research, and thought-provoking insights, it stands as an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to understand the world of the Norsemen. While it may not be without its flaws, its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses, making it a must-read for historians, students, and enthusiasts alike.

2 people found this helpful

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MF

Excellent book on the background and causes of the Viking expansion

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2021

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If you, like me, have read many older books on the Viking Age and come away dissatisfied with the proffered hypotheses on why the Vikings exploded out of Scandinavia, then this book is for you. Professor Price's background of the complex political, economic, and social processes that lead the Vikings to expand both East and West, and his description of the impacts of the resulting conflicts, conquests, and diaspora makes for a compelling explanation of what happened. Dr. Price's story is strengthened by his adept blending of differing sources of evidence (archaeological, written, etc.).

With that said, other reviewers' criticisms of Price's musings on the Vikings and LGBTQ lifestyles are valid. Price's seeming attempt to make the Vikings (and perhaps his own career focus?) acceptable to 'woke' academia is an embarrassing and lame waste of page... after page... after page... as he drones on in gushing terms about the possibility that some Vikings were sexual 'explorers'. It seems like he tries to make up for the lack of any supporting evidence by sacrificing more words to the theme.

Oh well. You can easily skip or skim read the queer-themed parts, and enjoy the rest of the book, which is evidence-backed, comprehensive, coherent and informative.

16 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Thick book

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2024

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I haven't read it yet. I do know it goes on depth and I can't wait to start reading

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Sidney Steelman

Great but sometimes frustrating

Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2023

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This is a must read for anyone interested in this subject. However, believe it or not, there is an LGBTQI+ agenda interspersed throughout the book that is very frustrating to have to get through. Seriously, in a book on the Viking Age, there is an author trying to pander to this crowd? Come on.

34 people found this helpful

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katrina

Enjoyed reading

Reviewed in Canada on October 29, 2023

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Interesting read

Cliente 1927

buon libro

Reviewed in Italy on October 13, 2023

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buona introduzione al periodo

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Mr. S. Cartlidge

An interesting and engaging exploration of Viking history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2023

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I absolutely loved reading "The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings" by Neil Price. This book provided a comprehensive and detailed account of Viking history that was both informative and engaging.

What I appreciated most about this book was how it offered a nuanced look into Viking society and culture beyond their military conquests. Price did an excellent job of exploring different aspects of Viking life, including their religion, art, and social structures, which gave me a better understanding of who the Vikings were and how they lived.

The writing style was accessible and easy to follow, even when the topics became more complex. Price's use of different sources, including archaeological finds and literature, added depth to the narrative and made it feel like I was getting a full picture of Viking history.

Overall, "The Children of Ash and Elm" is an excellent read for anyone interested in Viking history. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating period in history.

5 people found this helpful

José Macaya

Buen libro sobre los vikingos, pero tengo algunas advertencias...

Reviewed in Spain on November 14, 2022

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Sin duda he aprendido mucho sobre los vikingos. Tanto cosas que quería saber, como otras que no tenía tanto interés en aprender. Es un relato bastante completo sobre los vikingos, que fueron una sociedad mucho más importante de lo que normalmente se cree, pero tengo algunos puntos que mencionar, que pueden ayudar a futuros lectores:

1. Yo buscaba una historia de la presencia y expansión de los vikingos, que sabía habían llegado desde Norteamérica hasta Rusia y más al este. Cómo guerrearon con Francia y se quedaron con Normandía. Su dominio de las islas británicas. Su llegada al trono inglés y siciliano. Su llegada a dominar Rusia. Sus ataques por el Mediterráneo y hasta Constantinopla, etc. Pero estos temas solo aparecen pasado el 50% del libro y sin excesiva profundidad. Lo que el libro describe es lo que eran los vikingos. De qué sociedades anteriores provenían; sus costumbres sociales, sus conceptos de libertad, su organización política y religiosa, sus costumbres sexuales, etc. Es un libro interesante, bien investigado y escrito, pero en lo que yo buscaba, no ha sido tan completo como lo esperaba.

2. Desarrolla relatos que no está claro de dónde proceden. No explica fuentes. No sé cómo llega a esas conclusiones. Muchas de sus aseveraciones están hechas sin respaldo en fuentes. Deja duda sobre cuánto es historia y cuanto es un relato posible pero sin probar.

3. Desde el punto de vista de la redacción, no siempre resulta atrapante. Se hace largo, ya que hay largos pasajes con información que no parece justificar su extensión.

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Amazon カスタマー

An antidote to received ideas and ideological presupposition.

Reviewed in Japan on December 31, 2022

Verified Purchase

Excellent examination of myth, saga, history, archaeology and science to bring the world of the inhabitants of early medieval Scandinavia to life, and put their impact on their world into context.

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