The Vikings: a Very Short Introduction

I suppose it's inevitable that a series like the Very Short Introductions should be rather hit-or-miss. Coming from Cunliffe's introduction to the Celts, which I found to be very well-written, this volume on the Vikings was more difficult to get through. No doubt Richards possess a great amount of knowledge about the subject, but he's perhaps not the right person to distill it into a short 140 page volume for beginners.

Agreeing with some of the other reviews, this felt much more like a survey of archaeological finds relating to the Vikings---Richards goes on for pages about different excavations and the objects found within them. Yet in most cases one doesn't really come to understand which of those objects are significant and indicate show more a Scandinavian presence in that area, and what kind of continuity exists between Scandinavian expansion across different areas. There's a noticeable lack of the kind of overarching discussion I enjoyed in The Celts: Richards occasionally makes the scant effort to summarize the finds, but these bits come off as half-effort transitions to the next chapters more than anything else. The result is that one doesn't get much of a sense of who the Vikings were or of what their daily lives consisted, only with what they might have been buried. Nor, though he offhandedly mentions them a few times, does one come to understand how reality relates to the Scandinavian sagas.

The final two chapters were the strongest, I felt, in that I received something of an overall picture of the Greenland and North American colonies, and the discussion on how Viking identity has been modified and used in more recent times is exceptionally interesting.

As usual, the list of further readings is well appreciated---hopefully those may lead to some more focused introductions. show less

I found this book with a bookmark in the middle, probably indicating that I'd read a substantial portion of it years ago, but I still started back at the beginning because I had little to no recollection of that. While this does broadly cover the history and settlement patterns of the Vikings, I'd hoped to get more of Viking culture and tradition out of it, so it was a bit of a mismatch between expectations and reality. Still, it was an interesting survey, and I particularly liked the 'Reinventing the Vikings' chapter that explored the 19th–21st century rebirth of interest in the Vikings and confronted some of the racial issues tied up in that.

I love this series, the books are exactly what they purport to be. A *very* short introduction which serves as a jumping off point for further reading. This one has a friendly, witty tone to boot.

For a short book it was hard to read. A little bit too academic. A lot of our ideas about Vikings come from fiction and operas and films. Horned helmets is from Wagner. I still like their myths and the runes! Will read more.

Another VSI I'd kinda like to change the title of: "The things the Vikings left behind. And where they left 'em."

I really am undecided as to whether I like this book or not.

Richards puts some effort into countering other people's strange notions of who the Vikings were, but that leaves me where I don't quite seem to get a feel for who the Vikings were. What their daily lives were like. I suppose maybe pretty much like anyone else's lives back then, but still...

I'm left with a distinct feeling that Richards assumes I already know a bit about the Vikings, which I don't really. Which doesn't fit in under the title "A Very Short Introduction" I think.

Still I'm giving it 4 stars for the benefit of my doubt.

This is one of the OUP Very Short Introductions series (www.oup.co.uk/vsi) and was actually a lot more readable than I expected. I expected it to be much drier, but he was quite refreshing to read, even a few very subtle humorous references. He begins by stating that there's really no one such people as the vikings, but a range of early Scandinavian cultures that were reinvented as such relatively recently. The book is therefore more a history of early Scandinavia (c. 800 - 1100) and it's peoples, their cultures and expansions into other countries. It was very interesting indeed. They even discovered North America it seems, but didn't stay long.

I'd like to get some more books in this series - there are well over 100 now, and on show more fascinating subjects. show less

This is a fine, sophisticated overview that draws on numerous new archaeological discoveries. It's a nice antidote to the stereotypes.