Rating: 
Summary: Strangely fascinating.
Review: There is something strangely fascinating about the idea of pre-columbian voyages from the Old World to America. This must be the most comprehensive account. It is beautifully illustrated. It's not a book to read straight through. Each chapter stands separately, which is just as well because it's an oversize paperback with glossy pages and you can't comfortably read it in bed or on a commuter train.
Rating:
Summary: Completely mesmerizing
Review: This series of essays by Norse scholars is better than any novel I've read in years. So many mysteries, beautifully articulated! Why did a Bishop drop his gold ring in the choir loft? Why did witnesses come forward twenty years later to swear a wedding took place in Greenland just before its population completely disappeared? Why did the Vikings skedaddle out of Vinland? Why did they disappear with their furniture from Greenland but leave their livestock behind? Why did the majority of women die young and the majority of men live into their fifties?Don't start reading this wonderful book if you're supposed to be doing something else; you won't be able to put this down. What I like best of all, even better than the outstanding illustrations, is the tone of the writing. You are drawn into another historical era and invited to live there.--Linda Donelson, author of "Out of Isak Dinesen: Karen Blixen's untold story"
Rating:
Summary: This gorgeous Viking book ranks with the best
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: This gorgeous Viking book ranks with the best
Review: 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.
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