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Vikings
The Vikings famously took no prisoners, relished cruel retribution, and prided themselves on their bloody-thirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the west and as far as Baghdad in the east. As the Vikings did not write their history, we have to discover it for ourselves, and that discovery, as Neil Oliver reveals, tells an extraordinary story of a people who, from the brink of destruction, reached a quarter of the way around the globe and built an empire that lasted nearly two hundred years. Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1000 years ago?
384 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
326 people are currently reading
1880 people want to read
About the author
Neil Oliver
54 books285 followersNeil Oliver is a Scottish archaeologist, historian, broadcaster and writer who has become widely known as the presenter of BBC television's series A History of Scotland and Coast.
His first fiction novel, Master of Shadows, is published by Orion in September 2015.
He lives in Stirling with his wife and three children.
His first fiction novel, Master of Shadows, is published by Orion in September 2015.
He lives in Stirling with his wife and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 200 reviews
May 19, 2017
It’s a rather odd experience, reading this soon after reading Francis Pryor’s work. Where Pryor minimises the impact of folk migration, Oliver highlights at least half a dozen occasions where the Norsemen did, in fact, invade or colonise. From apparently the same sources, they argue completely different things. Now, Oliver’s work is a bit more accessible than Pryor’s, I think; for a start, this ties in with a BBC series (though Pryor’s Britain AD had a tv series as well, I think) and is generally pitched at that level, avoiding tedious levels of detail like the exact sequence of archaeology — interesting stuff, as far as I’m concerned, but not always the most riveting reading.
It also features a lot of attempts at imagining the past and bringing to life the past: Neil Oliver’s poignant imaginings about Birka Girl, for example. For me, that has varying success — for example, it’s all very well to note that someone had a lavish burial in a highly visible place, but does that necessarily mean they were loved by the people around them? Maybe it’s guilt, or ritual sacrifice, or political show.
Still, generally Oliver manages to be both informative and entertaining. For myself, I wished he’d spent more time on Icelandic concerns, since he mentioned Iceland few enough times it has a one line entry in the index. One line! And yet Iceland is the place I know the most about in terms of preservation of contemporary evidence, the sagas, etc. And on that note, I could’ve wished for a bit more engagement with the sagas, especially since any lit student knows that they were preserved with high fidelity and not written centuries later — they were written down centuries later, but the stories themselves were far older and were communicated orally well before they were written down.
(Well, unless new research has found otherwise in the four years since my MA, but I haven’t heard or read anything to that effect.)
Enjoyable read, and an antidote to the idea that Vikings were nothing but bloodthirsty raiders.
Originally reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
It also features a lot of attempts at imagining the past and bringing to life the past: Neil Oliver’s poignant imaginings about Birka Girl, for example. For me, that has varying success — for example, it’s all very well to note that someone had a lavish burial in a highly visible place, but does that necessarily mean they were loved by the people around them? Maybe it’s guilt, or ritual sacrifice, or political show.
Still, generally Oliver manages to be both informative and entertaining. For myself, I wished he’d spent more time on Icelandic concerns, since he mentioned Iceland few enough times it has a one line entry in the index. One line! And yet Iceland is the place I know the most about in terms of preservation of contemporary evidence, the sagas, etc. And on that note, I could’ve wished for a bit more engagement with the sagas, especially since any lit student knows that they were preserved with high fidelity and not written centuries later — they were written down centuries later, but the stories themselves were far older and were communicated orally well before they were written down.
(Well, unless new research has found otherwise in the four years since my MA, but I haven’t heard or read anything to that effect.)
Enjoyable read, and an antidote to the idea that Vikings were nothing but bloodthirsty raiders.
Originally reviewed for The Bibliophibian.
June 5, 2015
The Vikings was a bit meandering. It included a lot of personal anecdotes about the author, and a lot of historical information about times WAY before and after Vikings that are only tangentially related to the actual history of the vikings.
April 4, 2014
I didn't watch the BBC documentary series this book is designed to accompany - in fact, I've never seen any of Neil Oliver's documentaries. And call me a snob, but I try on the whole to avoid history books designed to accompany television programmes - by and large they tend to skim the surface of the history, aimed more at introducing the topic to the audience rather than going into it in any great depth. And, well, I like depth!
But I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The Viking Age is not one with which I'm greatly familiar, and like most people, I would imagine, my mental image of Vikings tend to be the usual horned helmets, furs, battle-axes and names like Eric the Bonecrusher and Thorkel the Destroyer. So, as light as this was, it was an enjoyable and enlightening read. It focuses very much on the Viking picture as a whole, distinguishing between those from Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Norway, and the emphasis is very much on the Vikings, rather than their victims. Personally I would have liked a little more of a focus on the Vikings' targets, a bit more about the impact and the experience of those people they attacked, but perhaps that's just me seeking the exciting bits of history!
The final chapter is particularly interesting, linking the Viking history neatly with our own - with the last great Viking king, Cnut (or Canute, of tidal fame) - king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden, a true Viking empire. Or perhaps the last Viking king could be William the Conqueror himself, since the Normans were after all originally Vikings - hence the name, Normandy, North Men. Would that make England a Viking realm?
But I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. The Viking Age is not one with which I'm greatly familiar, and like most people, I would imagine, my mental image of Vikings tend to be the usual horned helmets, furs, battle-axes and names like Eric the Bonecrusher and Thorkel the Destroyer. So, as light as this was, it was an enjoyable and enlightening read. It focuses very much on the Viking picture as a whole, distinguishing between those from Sweden, Iceland, Denmark and Norway, and the emphasis is very much on the Vikings, rather than their victims. Personally I would have liked a little more of a focus on the Vikings' targets, a bit more about the impact and the experience of those people they attacked, but perhaps that's just me seeking the exciting bits of history!
The final chapter is particularly interesting, linking the Viking history neatly with our own - with the last great Viking king, Cnut (or Canute, of tidal fame) - king of Denmark, England, Norway and parts of Sweden, a true Viking empire. Or perhaps the last Viking king could be William the Conqueror himself, since the Normans were after all originally Vikings - hence the name, Normandy, North Men. Would that make England a Viking realm?
July 27, 2014
Written as a companion volume to Neil Oliver's excellent documentary series, "Vikings" the book is a worthwhile read in its own right.
The book traces the Vikings from their earliest roots down all their divergent paths.
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Vikings are all covered, usually separately, but sometimes together where their historical paths overlap.
Neil also takes a good look at Icelanders, the most obvious descendants of the Vikings. Probably the most memorable part of this section is Neil's encounter with hakarl - basking shark which is buried for 3 months and left to rot. He gives an entire page to descriptions of the sensory experience of eating the stuff. In the documentary, his face was a picture when he ate it. In the book he describes the experience so minutely that you get the feeling that this is one particular experience that will remain with him for the rest of his life.
The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Vikings, the history of Scandinavia, and the history of the United Kingdom.
The book traces the Vikings from their earliest roots down all their divergent paths.
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Vikings are all covered, usually separately, but sometimes together where their historical paths overlap.
Neil also takes a good look at Icelanders, the most obvious descendants of the Vikings. Probably the most memorable part of this section is Neil's encounter with hakarl - basking shark which is buried for 3 months and left to rot. He gives an entire page to descriptions of the sensory experience of eating the stuff. In the documentary, his face was a picture when he ate it. In the book he describes the experience so minutely that you get the feeling that this is one particular experience that will remain with him for the rest of his life.
The book is lavishly illustrated with photographs and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Vikings, the history of Scandinavia, and the history of the United Kingdom.
August 17, 2017
Very quick, very fun read - I basically sped through it while in the garden, enjoying this heatwave. A lot of this stuff I already knew, I daresay if you know a lot about the Vikings then very little of this will be new, but I also learned some things. And Neil Oliver is a very good and personable, if not very objective, writer. He does something a lot of non-fiction doesn't try to do, build a picture in your head - and inspire a mood through images, language choice, and metaphors. Good stuff.
February 13, 2014
The Viking era is said to have ended with 1066 but it didn't, the Vikings have been portrayed, often very erroneously in popular culture and contemporary and later sources that were also the product of bias, in the latter religious bias. Notwithstanding the Vikings spread wide, as far as to the American Continent according to scientific and archeological evidence, and the reasons for their constant sea-faring was much driven by their sense of adventure as much of their pragmatic attitude. William of Normandy himself "the Conqueror" who conquered England in 1066 and crowned that same year in Christmas, was a descendant of one of these sea-faring peoples who had wrestled Normandy from Charlemagne's grandson centuries before.
Yet even before William, the Viking's impact was big, they might've no longer been Vikings and pagans but just as they had assimilated into Christian societies (mostly for business purposes as Christianity was a powerful tool) so had many societies that had come into contact with them, most of the words today in the English language are a testament to that. Yet the author doesn't shy away from also laying down the facts from every day Viking society, he doesn't sugar coat them or white wash them. This was a very brutal society they formed part in, much of Europe was the same but the Vikings practiced human sacrifice as the Tollund man may prove, some of their slave women or other chosen slaves were interred with them.
Their ships were impressive and were fierce warriors, yet there is a lot of information still missing that the author admits its due largely in part to insufficient written records, what makes up for it is some contemporary sources and archeological evidence but even so, it's very hard to piece everything together and it's one thing I liked in some chapters that the author doesn't tell you what to believe or tries to convince you, but rather he gives his readers the evidence of what is known so far and when he does jump into conclusions he does it without seeming arrogant or judgmental.
Yet even before William, the Viking's impact was big, they might've no longer been Vikings and pagans but just as they had assimilated into Christian societies (mostly for business purposes as Christianity was a powerful tool) so had many societies that had come into contact with them, most of the words today in the English language are a testament to that. Yet the author doesn't shy away from also laying down the facts from every day Viking society, he doesn't sugar coat them or white wash them. This was a very brutal society they formed part in, much of Europe was the same but the Vikings practiced human sacrifice as the Tollund man may prove, some of their slave women or other chosen slaves were interred with them.
Their ships were impressive and were fierce warriors, yet there is a lot of information still missing that the author admits its due largely in part to insufficient written records, what makes up for it is some contemporary sources and archeological evidence but even so, it's very hard to piece everything together and it's one thing I liked in some chapters that the author doesn't tell you what to believe or tries to convince you, but rather he gives his readers the evidence of what is known so far and when he does jump into conclusions he does it without seeming arrogant or judgmental.
June 9, 2020
Neil Oliver is excellent.
November 20, 2016
I read this in preparation for a museum exhibit I may attend soon. I like to know something about the subject of an exhibit before I get there; I find it greatly increases my enjoyment of the experience. (Should I admit to studying for going to a museum? I feel like this activity clearly labels me as something, but I'm cool with that.)
What I enjoyed most in this book were the author's personal expressions of following in Viking footsteps. Whether it was sleeping in a reconstructed Bronze Age house by himself, watching the progress of a modern day Viking ship along a waterway, or standing meditatively before the remains of various Viking burials, the author was obviously touched with a sense of awe, which is compelling to read about.
However, much of the book feels like very vague history. I suppose this is only natural when much of the Viking era took place without contemporary recorders of the history. I think I wanted more names and hard fast facts, and there were SOME, but more towards the end of the book.
At least I know now how Bluetooth got its name.
And, it was pretty cool reading about the Viking settlements on Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
What I enjoyed most in this book were the author's personal expressions of following in Viking footsteps. Whether it was sleeping in a reconstructed Bronze Age house by himself, watching the progress of a modern day Viking ship along a waterway, or standing meditatively before the remains of various Viking burials, the author was obviously touched with a sense of awe, which is compelling to read about.
However, much of the book feels like very vague history. I suppose this is only natural when much of the Viking era took place without contemporary recorders of the history. I think I wanted more names and hard fast facts, and there were SOME, but more towards the end of the book.
At least I know now how Bluetooth got its name.
And, it was pretty cool reading about the Viking settlements on Iceland, Greenland, and North America.
February 3, 2015
I will say I read this book because of the TV show on the History channel Vikings. I did not feel I got a history lesson on the vikings culture , which is what I was looking for. It was a wordy author's account of his travels
November 15, 2015
This is a slog. The writing is not good; it's not heavy but it is overly wordy and too self-involved for my taste. I get that it's tied to a TV program - tho I've not seen it - but I wish there was less about Oliver and more about the discoveries and the timeline.
April 11, 2019
This was an enjoyable nighttime read for me. When a man’s passion for something begins as a child it shows in the lifelong work he does. The love of Vikings and their history is definitely the driving force behind this work.
December 15, 2016
Although I learned a few things, this was quite wordy and a bit wandering. I was hoping for a better view of Viking culture/beliefs, but didn't get that.
June 20, 2014
I did not enjoy this. Oliver never seems comfortable relating the necessary information in a non-fragmented (often lamentably in a repetitive manner that does more to confuse than to confirm information already presented) narrative. His personal asides are left with almost no support, such as his odd obsession with the Birka girl (apparently now 'named' Disa), and do much to remind the reader that while Oliver may have a treasure trove of information to relate (or at least access to that information), he will do more to frustrate than inform whenever given the chance.
There are a few specifics about which I think bear commenting:
"The Viking could never seemed so appalling if there had not been Christians to appall." (p. 75)
This is more clever writing than making a point. Oliver goes to great lengths to explain that much of the Viking Age was one of Christian or partially Christianized Vikings. Whatever moral expectations may have been present for 8th-11th Century British Christians is left unexplored (and these are the Christians being appalled, or so the reader is led to believe at the time).
A Viking fleet apparently arrived at (to threaten) Constantinople on 18 June, 860 (p. 134). This is only meaningful to me in that, like Waterloo, it gives me another historical event to note on my birthday.
I had to go look up the word "fug" because, being something other than British, I had never encountered it. Ever. It appears on p. 202 with little context to dissuade the American reader that it may just me a misprint of the word 'fog'.
Late in the book Oliver completely forgoes any attempt to remain restrained in his prose ( examples include p. 206 where Oliver declares a natural fissure as "the crack of doom" and p. 209 where a traditional Icelandic rotten-shark dish's taste/smell/experience is described as "a French kiss with the living dead"). Maybe this would not have been jarring had he been more open earlier in the book, but it came off as both immature and unprofessional rather than as a means to illustrate the world and experience of the Vikings.
There are a few specifics about which I think bear commenting:
"The Viking could never seemed so appalling if there had not been Christians to appall." (p. 75)
This is more clever writing than making a point. Oliver goes to great lengths to explain that much of the Viking Age was one of Christian or partially Christianized Vikings. Whatever moral expectations may have been present for 8th-11th Century British Christians is left unexplored (and these are the Christians being appalled, or so the reader is led to believe at the time).
A Viking fleet apparently arrived at (to threaten) Constantinople on 18 June, 860 (p. 134). This is only meaningful to me in that, like Waterloo, it gives me another historical event to note on my birthday.
I had to go look up the word "fug" because, being something other than British, I had never encountered it. Ever. It appears on p. 202 with little context to dissuade the American reader that it may just me a misprint of the word 'fog'.
Late in the book Oliver completely forgoes any attempt to remain restrained in his prose ( examples include p. 206 where Oliver declares a natural fissure as "the crack of doom" and p. 209 where a traditional Icelandic rotten-shark dish's taste/smell/experience is described as "a French kiss with the living dead"). Maybe this would not have been jarring had he been more open earlier in the book, but it came off as both immature and unprofessional rather than as a means to illustrate the world and experience of the Vikings.
December 6, 2020
“If you ask me, a fascination triggered by a story heard in childhood — be it from a novel, action-movie or whatever else — is the purest of all.”
A comprehensive investigation into the roots and impact of the Viking expansion period in the nineth and tenth centuries. Much of the pop culture image is wrong, but we knew that. Not that Oliver hews to high academia. Think of this as one person’s informed musings.
“The Vikings were a long time coming. The product of 8,000 years’ worth of lives lived — hunters, farmers and metal-workers; masters of boats, carved in stone and crafted from timber; traders in amber, furs and oil; warriors and kings; clients of Rome.” (True of all western Europe)
Stars slowly and follows many extraneous rabbit trails. Two hundred pages of scholarship spread among two hundred pages of opinion. No archeology project too small or too unrelated to fail to distract Oliver from touting his favorite field.
“the so-called ‘Near East’ of Mesopotamia”
Quibbles: He gets lots of details wrong, which uncuts the credibility of the rest.
“one story suggested by …” “I like to imagine …” “Maybe some of the inspiration for those elegant craft had come …” “I even like the thought that …” “it is hard to resist the notion that …”
Oliver trashes his sources but then builds on their unreliable testimony anyway. He passes off his opinions as fact. Most of the above quotes all occurred on one page. The book’s big weakness is also makes it so readable: Oliver repeatedly injecting himself into the narrative. Reads like the script to reality television.
“In any event its appearance in a village on a Swedish island is as surprising as would be the discovery of a pair of Swedish skis beneath the paved floor of a Thai temple.” (Not so.)
A comprehensive investigation into the roots and impact of the Viking expansion period in the nineth and tenth centuries. Much of the pop culture image is wrong, but we knew that. Not that Oliver hews to high academia. Think of this as one person’s informed musings.
“The Vikings were a long time coming. The product of 8,000 years’ worth of lives lived — hunters, farmers and metal-workers; masters of boats, carved in stone and crafted from timber; traders in amber, furs and oil; warriors and kings; clients of Rome.” (True of all western Europe)
Stars slowly and follows many extraneous rabbit trails. Two hundred pages of scholarship spread among two hundred pages of opinion. No archeology project too small or too unrelated to fail to distract Oliver from touting his favorite field.
“the so-called ‘Near East’ of Mesopotamia”
Quibbles: He gets lots of details wrong, which uncuts the credibility of the rest.
“one story suggested by …” “I like to imagine …” “Maybe some of the inspiration for those elegant craft had come …” “I even like the thought that …” “it is hard to resist the notion that …”
Oliver trashes his sources but then builds on their unreliable testimony anyway. He passes off his opinions as fact. Most of the above quotes all occurred on one page. The book’s big weakness is also makes it so readable: Oliver repeatedly injecting himself into the narrative. Reads like the script to reality television.
“In any event its appearance in a village on a Swedish island is as surprising as would be the discovery of a pair of Swedish skis beneath the paved floor of a Thai temple.” (Not so.)
November 24, 2019
Eerder dit jaar was ik een paar dagen in Norwich en bezocht onder andere de Viking tentoonstelling in Norwich Castle. In de souvenirshop kocht ik dit boek over de Vikingen geschreven door Neil Oliver die ik ken van op TV (BBC).
De auteur begint zijn relaas ver voor het tijdperk van de Vikingen, bij de eerdere bewoners van Scandinavië en gaat zo verder en verder in de tijd tot hij in de 8ste eeuw van onze tijdrekening komt en de eerste Vikingen hun land verlaten om hun heil en vooral veel geld elders te vinden.
Dit boek is erg interessant, maar het is meer dan dat. Het raakt je ook op tijd en stond. Dat is omdat de auteur zelf ook geraakt wordt bij het aanschouwen van verschillende historische overblijfselen en ons vertelt waarom dat zo is.
Dit boek laat je verder ook stilstaan bij het verglijden van de tijd, hoe weinig we weten over wie er voor ons op onze plek was, wie er dezelfde passen als wij zetten, hoe we enkel de gemeenplaatsen leren en onthouden. Vikings zijn wel wat meer geweest dan enkel die stoere Noormannen die dood en verderf zaaiden. Ontdekkingsreizigers waren ze, onverschrokken in hun zoektocht naar macht en rijkdom, maar ook commerçanten, mensen met inzicht, innovators, en zoveel meer.
Het tijdperk van de vikingen liep grofweg van einde 8ste eeuw tot aan de slag bij Hastings (1066) die gewonnen werd door Willem de Veroveraar - Willem, hertog van Normandië dus, Willem die een nakomeling was van Rollo de Viking die Normandië (Noord-Man-dië) kreeg van de Franse koning Karel de Eenvoudige.
Het cirkeltje was rond.
De auteur begint zijn relaas ver voor het tijdperk van de Vikingen, bij de eerdere bewoners van Scandinavië en gaat zo verder en verder in de tijd tot hij in de 8ste eeuw van onze tijdrekening komt en de eerste Vikingen hun land verlaten om hun heil en vooral veel geld elders te vinden.
Dit boek is erg interessant, maar het is meer dan dat. Het raakt je ook op tijd en stond. Dat is omdat de auteur zelf ook geraakt wordt bij het aanschouwen van verschillende historische overblijfselen en ons vertelt waarom dat zo is.
Dit boek laat je verder ook stilstaan bij het verglijden van de tijd, hoe weinig we weten over wie er voor ons op onze plek was, wie er dezelfde passen als wij zetten, hoe we enkel de gemeenplaatsen leren en onthouden. Vikings zijn wel wat meer geweest dan enkel die stoere Noormannen die dood en verderf zaaiden. Ontdekkingsreizigers waren ze, onverschrokken in hun zoektocht naar macht en rijkdom, maar ook commerçanten, mensen met inzicht, innovators, en zoveel meer.
Het tijdperk van de vikingen liep grofweg van einde 8ste eeuw tot aan de slag bij Hastings (1066) die gewonnen werd door Willem de Veroveraar - Willem, hertog van Normandië dus, Willem die een nakomeling was van Rollo de Viking die Normandië (Noord-Man-dië) kreeg van de Franse koning Karel de Eenvoudige.
Het cirkeltje was rond.
November 27, 2017
Loved this book. I bought it after our return from Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland because I felt that my education of vikings was woefully incomplete. I'm glad I read the book after the trip, however, because I was able to contextualize what I was learning based on my memories. If I had read the book beforehand, I might not have paid close attention to details, dates and place names that I ended up visiting on the trip. The author is thorough and wide ranging, without coming off too academic (that being said, this book is definitely for subject enthusiasts and laymen with college educations. Its gets a little heady here and there, and a background in world history would help).
If I could point out some flaws: the author is a bit wordy and self-involved (its cool you got to hold an old viking glove that felt soft, but why so fixated on the Birka girl?) Also, there wasn't much written on Iceland and Greenland, and nothing on Finland. In particular, I would've liked to learn more about the relationship between Iceland and Europe, although I was happy he cited extensively from Jesse Byock's book on Viking Age Iceland, which I read before my trip. The ommission of Finland is unforgiveable, though. There is more written on the Saami people who straddle Sweden and Finland than on the Finnish people themselves. Obviously the Finns are distinct from Scandinavians, but he spilled enough ink on the Slavs, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons to warrant a second book. But no mention of the Finns or ancestors of modern-day Finns in the Baltic region?
Some of the topics that were covered that I actually visited or learned about on my trip included:
- Gamla Uppsala and the mounds
- The sunken viking ships near Roskilde, and the viking ship reconstruction museum there today
- Bog bodies and "log coffins" at the Danish history museum
- Lurs, helmets, and hoards of gold and silver at the Stockholm history museum
- Skane (specifically the Trelleborg Fortress which was closed when we visited)
- Kiviksgraven
- Runestones and Ship settings - the ship-shaped stone monuments all over Scandinavia. We saw one in Skane called Ales Stenar
- The Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark
- The pillars on the 11-mile bridge between Zealand and Fun are the tallest points in all of Denmark.
- Thingvellir -the plain in West Iceland where the first king-less 'thing', or parliament, was created. As I learned from Byock's book, Icelandic politics lacked a central executive power and was run by regional lawyer-chieftans called gothar.
- Image of the Vikings: The Vikings weren't necessarily more bloodthirsty or violent than their contemporaries, but they possessed better sailing technology and were geographically positioned to raid wealthy kingdoms in England, northern Europe, and the Baltic. They just sailed better than anyone, and it took the kings of Europe to build up their navies. The vikings were adept traders and were mostly tolerant of other religions and ethnicities, for example in the land of the Rus and in Denmark.
Misc. fun things I learned:
- "Knarr" is a term for the broad transport ships Vikings used to move people and livestock, rather than the fast raiding ships. We at at the Cafe Knarr at the viking ship museum in Roskilde, DK, but didn't know what "knarr" meant.
- I never learned British or Roman history systematically (most of my world history education picked up at the Renaissance, for some reason), so I appreciated the author's approach to placing the vikings in their proper historical and geographical context. I learned a lot about "BCE" history, the Romans and Byzantines, and proto-viking peoples of northern Europe. Also, I didn't know shit about Anglo-Saxons/Britons/Celts/Picts, and I still don't totally get it.
- After Iceland converted to Christianity in AD 1000, they allowed pagans to continue two surprising Pagan rites: eating horsemeat and leaving their unwanted babies out in the elements to die.
- (Related: the Pope outlawed eating horses in 732 AD)
- Norway used to own Shetland and Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland
- King Haakon IV of Norway invaded Scotland in the 13th century, 200 years after the supposed end of the Viking Age
If I could point out some flaws: the author is a bit wordy and self-involved (its cool you got to hold an old viking glove that felt soft, but why so fixated on the Birka girl?) Also, there wasn't much written on Iceland and Greenland, and nothing on Finland. In particular, I would've liked to learn more about the relationship between Iceland and Europe, although I was happy he cited extensively from Jesse Byock's book on Viking Age Iceland, which I read before my trip. The ommission of Finland is unforgiveable, though. There is more written on the Saami people who straddle Sweden and Finland than on the Finnish people themselves. Obviously the Finns are distinct from Scandinavians, but he spilled enough ink on the Slavs, Romans, and Anglo-Saxons to warrant a second book. But no mention of the Finns or ancestors of modern-day Finns in the Baltic region?
Some of the topics that were covered that I actually visited or learned about on my trip included:
- Gamla Uppsala and the mounds
- The sunken viking ships near Roskilde, and the viking ship reconstruction museum there today
- Bog bodies and "log coffins" at the Danish history museum
- Lurs, helmets, and hoards of gold and silver at the Stockholm history museum
- Skane (specifically the Trelleborg Fortress which was closed when we visited)
- Kiviksgraven
- Runestones and Ship settings - the ship-shaped stone monuments all over Scandinavia. We saw one in Skane called Ales Stenar
- The Oresund bridge between Sweden and Denmark
- The pillars on the 11-mile bridge between Zealand and Fun are the tallest points in all of Denmark.
- Thingvellir -the plain in West Iceland where the first king-less 'thing', or parliament, was created. As I learned from Byock's book, Icelandic politics lacked a central executive power and was run by regional lawyer-chieftans called gothar.
- Image of the Vikings: The Vikings weren't necessarily more bloodthirsty or violent than their contemporaries, but they possessed better sailing technology and were geographically positioned to raid wealthy kingdoms in England, northern Europe, and the Baltic. They just sailed better than anyone, and it took the kings of Europe to build up their navies. The vikings were adept traders and were mostly tolerant of other religions and ethnicities, for example in the land of the Rus and in Denmark.
Misc. fun things I learned:
- "Knarr" is a term for the broad transport ships Vikings used to move people and livestock, rather than the fast raiding ships. We at at the Cafe Knarr at the viking ship museum in Roskilde, DK, but didn't know what "knarr" meant.
- I never learned British or Roman history systematically (most of my world history education picked up at the Renaissance, for some reason), so I appreciated the author's approach to placing the vikings in their proper historical and geographical context. I learned a lot about "BCE" history, the Romans and Byzantines, and proto-viking peoples of northern Europe. Also, I didn't know shit about Anglo-Saxons/Britons/Celts/Picts, and I still don't totally get it.
- After Iceland converted to Christianity in AD 1000, they allowed pagans to continue two surprising Pagan rites: eating horsemeat and leaving their unwanted babies out in the elements to die.
- (Related: the Pope outlawed eating horses in 732 AD)
- Norway used to own Shetland and Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland
- King Haakon IV of Norway invaded Scotland in the 13th century, 200 years after the supposed end of the Viking Age
September 22, 2013
Before reading this book I reckon that what I knew about the Vikings was fairly typical: their raids on monasteries on the East coast of Britain, their settlements in York and Dublin, the Danelaw & battles with Alfred the Great, the voyages to Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland. I even knew that the Normans were not-long-before Vikings and the contributions of their languages to the English tongue. Oh and their mythology, I knew some of that too. Seems quite a lot, doesn't it? But it's hardly anything really when compared to the back-to-the-ice-age history of an archaeologist and the less insular view of someone determined to tell the story of an entire people.
So, lots of fascinating information. Oliver has a real fondness for the people and succeeds in showing them in a more rounded fashion and as far more significant players on the world stage than most of us realise. However, when descending to the level of individuals, his imaginations are sometimes rather sentimental and it is quite obviously a book of a television series. By that I mean there's an awful lot of descriptions of places, people and artefacts. Some of them are good, even evocative, but others are no substitute for a picture, and there aren't quite enough of those. Also, there are sections of recap, out-of-chronological sequence storytelling or geographical skips which you can see are designed to hook someone in to a particular thread. Of course, history is not a simple, linear narrative and these techniques are therefore not limited to visual media, but here they made their presence felt rather than supporting my understanding.
Overall, it was a very readable book from which I learnt things but didn't feel patronised when reading about things I already knew, so that makes it rather good, doesn't it?
So, lots of fascinating information. Oliver has a real fondness for the people and succeeds in showing them in a more rounded fashion and as far more significant players on the world stage than most of us realise. However, when descending to the level of individuals, his imaginations are sometimes rather sentimental and it is quite obviously a book of a television series. By that I mean there's an awful lot of descriptions of places, people and artefacts. Some of them are good, even evocative, but others are no substitute for a picture, and there aren't quite enough of those. Also, there are sections of recap, out-of-chronological sequence storytelling or geographical skips which you can see are designed to hook someone in to a particular thread. Of course, history is not a simple, linear narrative and these techniques are therefore not limited to visual media, but here they made their presence felt rather than supporting my understanding.
Overall, it was a very readable book from which I learnt things but didn't feel patronised when reading about things I already knew, so that makes it rather good, doesn't it?
January 2, 2017
Firstly; I didn't see the TV series this book emerged from, so I'm not sure if it covers the same ground or not. The book is informative of course, and full of a great many interesting little facts and details that held my interest throughout. The book gives a brief overview of the Viking age, yet is concerned mainly with these little details brought to life through archaeology.
There were two things I felt slightly diminished my enjoyment; we are well over a third of the way through to book before we get to the so-called Viking age. When I began the book I was expecting the history of the tribes which the Danish, Norweigan and Swedish emerged from to be covered in the first chapter. After fifty or so pages of it I found myself skipping ahead to find out when it would get to where I wanted to get to to realise I'd have to read another 70 or so pages before we got to the Lindisfarne raid and so on. Not that it wasn't interesting, but while reading this first part I often felt myself thinking 'get on with it!'. The other part which detracted from it, were the personal accounts of Neil Oliver's travels to the different sites. Some of it was interesting, but largely I felt it wasn't needed; except that is, his very vivid description of the sensations of eating the food of the time. It wouldn't be enough to read how Basking shark was prepared and to imagine it probably tasted awful, but to read the analogies of what it might taste similar to brought it much more to life.
I'd think the book would better be titled 'Origins of the Vikings' as it seems to dwell as much in the pre-viking age as during it. It was entertaining, interesting, and much of the information in the book will stay with me. I've given it three stars which might be a little harsh, but feel it's slightly lacking for the fourth star.
There were two things I felt slightly diminished my enjoyment; we are well over a third of the way through to book before we get to the so-called Viking age. When I began the book I was expecting the history of the tribes which the Danish, Norweigan and Swedish emerged from to be covered in the first chapter. After fifty or so pages of it I found myself skipping ahead to find out when it would get to where I wanted to get to to realise I'd have to read another 70 or so pages before we got to the Lindisfarne raid and so on. Not that it wasn't interesting, but while reading this first part I often felt myself thinking 'get on with it!'. The other part which detracted from it, were the personal accounts of Neil Oliver's travels to the different sites. Some of it was interesting, but largely I felt it wasn't needed; except that is, his very vivid description of the sensations of eating the food of the time. It wouldn't be enough to read how Basking shark was prepared and to imagine it probably tasted awful, but to read the analogies of what it might taste similar to brought it much more to life.
I'd think the book would better be titled 'Origins of the Vikings' as it seems to dwell as much in the pre-viking age as during it. It was entertaining, interesting, and much of the information in the book will stay with me. I've given it three stars which might be a little harsh, but feel it's slightly lacking for the fourth star.
December 6, 2015
I maybe a little bias with this book. I have a wee crush on Neil Oliver, I have re-watched his documentaries multiple times. I do like his energetic Scottish burr. The Chef calls him the Scottish Prick, purely based that Oliver was mean Tony Robinson, on a truly awkward live episode of Time Team English Castles special. It was a lesson more in the fact that archaeologist don't do live. There was lots of that three second delayed, then step into walking down a lane stuff. I swear there was even a point when one guy looked at the wrong camera. Not the best episode of Time Team. Ok yes, Oliver was a little bit of a prick, but he is a very interesting prick.
In the BBC documentary as well as in the corresponding book looking for Vikings seems for Oliver the equivalent of a Dark Age sweet shop. It is pretty much the Scottish rouge running around Scandinavia, Russia and parts of Turkey like an excited fanboy. Though I would be exactly the same, cursing about the Hagia Sophia, Russia, Norway, Iceland. Talk about a dream job. This book was interesting, Oliver understands the right mix of drama and analysis. It was a little too kitsch sometimes, with him staying in a Bronze Age Denmark long house trying to get close to the ancient Scandinavian people. But the section on eating Viking food such as rotten shark was interesting.
These books are an indulgence more than anything, it gives me the ability to time travel. It was interesting to hang out with the violent pagans for a while.
In the BBC documentary as well as in the corresponding book looking for Vikings seems for Oliver the equivalent of a Dark Age sweet shop. It is pretty much the Scottish rouge running around Scandinavia, Russia and parts of Turkey like an excited fanboy. Though I would be exactly the same, cursing about the Hagia Sophia, Russia, Norway, Iceland. Talk about a dream job. This book was interesting, Oliver understands the right mix of drama and analysis. It was a little too kitsch sometimes, with him staying in a Bronze Age Denmark long house trying to get close to the ancient Scandinavian people. But the section on eating Viking food such as rotten shark was interesting.
These books are an indulgence more than anything, it gives me the ability to time travel. It was interesting to hang out with the violent pagans for a while.
February 14, 2017
Written as a complement to Neil Oliver's documentary, "The Vikings" is not an actual History of the Northmen from Danmark, Sweden and Norway, but an interesting choice of several stories illustrating the fabulous adventures of these people. The importance of the Vikings in Eastern Europe, in England, and in Ireland History, their daily life and their relationships with the people of these countries, are described with a lot of details and anecdotes. If the Oliver's book succeed in showing that the Vikings were not the cruel and stupid barbarians that the their enemies described, it failed in giving us a global new History of the fabulous adventure which brought them from Kiev to Greenland and from Iceland to Sicilia.
February 9, 2014
I watched Oliver's documentary that ties in with this book and I wanted to see if his writing style was as personable as his presenting. He writes clearly and intelligently and his enthusiasm for the subject shines through. I learnt a lot more about the Vikings from both the show and the book and I would recommend both. The only reason I didn't give this five stars is because he repeats himself on a couple of occasions.
August 7, 2017
Good clear and understandable this history of the Vikings is also very light. If you're looking for something to get a handle on a current TV show this might be a good place to start but in terms of deep detailed history you'll need more.
March 27, 2015
Virtually the same as the documentary that Neil Oliver hosted but was great to have the info cemented - a few things that I missed in the show. from tuebl free.
August 15, 2025
4.5 ⭐
"A burst of flame leaves a ghost that lingers on the retina long after the light itself has gone. I cannot forget Birka girl and the world will never forget the Vikings."
I had an absolute blast reading this. cracking into a book with three pages of historic maps, a 10 page index, and a middle section full of archeological photography after reading modern lit fic slop is like stepping into an air conditioned building after walking in the heat for a day. pure relief and joy.
starting with what I didn't love: the book was just slightly disorderly and a bit jangled to follow. that being said, oliver himself calls this out when he says it's so hard to categorize the events of the Vikings because they were happening so simultaneously throughout the world (though I still think it could have been refined). I also don't think this book had a solid grasp on one line of thought or investigation about Vikings, and was more a hodgepodge collection of oliver's experience investigating the timeline of Vikings, which isn't bad, but I think it could've used some more focus. lastly, and I know that much of history is only documented by and about men, and this is no one person's fault...I wish there was more information and documentation about women! which is of course a general problem with European history especially, but the Viking age had such insane advancement in labors and arts that were predominantly women dominated, so there was room for it. (something that didn't take away my reading experience at all but was glaringly obvious throughout: whoever copy edited this book needs to never be allowed in a publishing house again)
alright. onto what I loved: everything else. this was so informative, and despite earlier critiques, there really was a ton of information packed into a pretty tight page count. I have at least 10+ pages of notes to look back on. starting back in the Bronze Age maybe seemed a little overkill at first, but the 80+ page lead up to the first appearance of the Vikings' ancestors really did wonders to help contextualize what we were stepping into.
I read a couple low-rated reviews that said they didn't like how often oliver inserted himself into the narrative, but that's what really sold this experience for me! if you stayed in a longhouse, or attended a Scandinavian festival, or rowed on a longboat, or ate like the Vikings who raided Iceland, I want to hear about it! I love history because of how it pulls you back through time and helps you relate to people separated by millennia through common experience, and clearly, so does oliver. if he wants to wax poetic about a little girl in the Viking Age who was buried like a queen, and talk about how touching it is that such a 'brutish' people would honor a six year old child, I want to read about it! and maybe including theories isn't 100% kosher, but a) they were attributed to researchers and potential evidence, and b) again, it helps contextualize what could have been instead of leaving gaps and doors to nothing.
more than anything this book has to say about Vikings, though, it's a FANTASTIC read for understanding the utilization and deployment of religion in medieval Europe. the depth of information I got from this book about Christianity in Europe is going to help me understand every piece of historical reading so much better from here on out.
not sure what the bell curve is for crying reading a historic book about Vikings but I can pretty comfortably say I'm on the very far, very flat right end
"A burst of flame leaves a ghost that lingers on the retina long after the light itself has gone. I cannot forget Birka girl and the world will never forget the Vikings."
I had an absolute blast reading this. cracking into a book with three pages of historic maps, a 10 page index, and a middle section full of archeological photography after reading modern lit fic slop is like stepping into an air conditioned building after walking in the heat for a day. pure relief and joy.
starting with what I didn't love: the book was just slightly disorderly and a bit jangled to follow. that being said, oliver himself calls this out when he says it's so hard to categorize the events of the Vikings because they were happening so simultaneously throughout the world (though I still think it could have been refined). I also don't think this book had a solid grasp on one line of thought or investigation about Vikings, and was more a hodgepodge collection of oliver's experience investigating the timeline of Vikings, which isn't bad, but I think it could've used some more focus. lastly, and I know that much of history is only documented by and about men, and this is no one person's fault...I wish there was more information and documentation about women! which is of course a general problem with European history especially, but the Viking age had such insane advancement in labors and arts that were predominantly women dominated, so there was room for it. (something that didn't take away my reading experience at all but was glaringly obvious throughout: whoever copy edited this book needs to never be allowed in a publishing house again)
alright. onto what I loved: everything else. this was so informative, and despite earlier critiques, there really was a ton of information packed into a pretty tight page count. I have at least 10+ pages of notes to look back on. starting back in the Bronze Age maybe seemed a little overkill at first, but the 80+ page lead up to the first appearance of the Vikings' ancestors really did wonders to help contextualize what we were stepping into.
I read a couple low-rated reviews that said they didn't like how often oliver inserted himself into the narrative, but that's what really sold this experience for me! if you stayed in a longhouse, or attended a Scandinavian festival, or rowed on a longboat, or ate like the Vikings who raided Iceland, I want to hear about it! I love history because of how it pulls you back through time and helps you relate to people separated by millennia through common experience, and clearly, so does oliver. if he wants to wax poetic about a little girl in the Viking Age who was buried like a queen, and talk about how touching it is that such a 'brutish' people would honor a six year old child, I want to read about it! and maybe including theories isn't 100% kosher, but a) they were attributed to researchers and potential evidence, and b) again, it helps contextualize what could have been instead of leaving gaps and doors to nothing.
more than anything this book has to say about Vikings, though, it's a FANTASTIC read for understanding the utilization and deployment of religion in medieval Europe. the depth of information I got from this book about Christianity in Europe is going to help me understand every piece of historical reading so much better from here on out.
not sure what the bell curve is for crying reading a historic book about Vikings but I can pretty comfortably say I'm on the very far, very flat right end
June 22, 2022
comprehensive book about the Vikings. From Rome to Byzantium to the New World and everywhere in between. Lots of new to me people and more ideas for reading. Love Neil Oliver's work and plan to watch this series if we can find it.
November 14, 2019
I thoroughly enjoyed this historical account of the Vikings! Oliver is extremely detail-oriented and leaves no stone unturned in his retelling of the historical impact of these people. He begins with the formation of Scandinavia and the original settlers, whose ancestors would become the people we call Vikings. Backed up by archaeology, ancient records, and science, he tells the distinct histories of Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Danish vikings as they made their marks on the world. It was interesting to learn about how each of the different kingdoms did their own things and had their own methods of expansion and colonization. Definitely worth the read! 4.5 stars!
August 30, 2025
One of the better books concerning VAH. I appreciated the extensive research. 5⭐️
April 18, 2021
Can't be bothered to finish this because by page 110, a full one third of the book in, he still hasn't really started talking about Vikings. Instead, he has just outlined 3,000 years of Scandinavian prehistory, calling those communities 'the ancestors of Vikings' and making it sound like there is some direct link between Vikings and the people who inhabited the same stretch of land millennia before (and also the people of Scandinavia today and Vikings). The first 100 pages could have just been summarised to one short chapter saying that seafaring was always a thing in Scandinavia and charting the early medieval landscape of Europe. But he's kind of creating a direct connection and straightforward trajectory where there isn't one, and that is dangerously close to leaning into the very problematic notion of 'it's always been one people, inhabiting the same land, with the same customs'.
There were also some factual errors that don't really make a difference in the grand scheme of things but are enough to annoy petty people like me. For example, he states that 'Vikings resisted Christianity longer than any other people in Europe'. Not true, look at places like Finland and Lithuania (let alone the Jewish and Muslim communities of Europe as well?) He also makes it sounds like Saami people have only ever lived in the regions of Norway and Sweden, calling those in Finland and Russia simply 'Finnish and Russian natives' as if they're completely separate groups. Fact-checking isn't that hard!
Oliver also gives a great example of how not to do archaeology. Of a female burial, he writes that "The grave contained the skeleton of a young woman. I like to imagine she was lovely." Why though? Why do men have the need to see a woman whose body has long since decomposed as attractive? It's a sack of bones, man! Needless to say, when he talks about male burials, he doesn't say that he likes to imagine they were total hunks. Much more strange, however, is how he goes on to say that the necklace worn by the woman, made of the teeth of forty animals "speaks of a great and skilful hunter. It is not much of a leap to see it as a gift given only to the most important person in HIS world, HIS daughter or HIS wife." Well that is quite the leap, actually, automatically assigning the hunter to be a male and the woman to be a passive receiver of gifts. Did the burial come with a birthday card saying 'this necklace was made by your strong manly husband' or what...? At least forty animals were caught and you assume none of them might have been caught by the woman? Women couldn't have had the skills to make a necklace? This was particularly frustrating considering that just a few pages earlier he quoted two Roman sources describing how in the north, women hunted alongside men, and the he fails to even consider it in his own interpretation, choosing to base it on modern gender roles rather than, you know, archaeological evidence. Are we really sure that men are fit for academia when so often they seem to push modern agendas, in this case some fantasy of nuclear family?
Two stars because it wasn't that badly written so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it might have got better in the remaining two thirds.
There were also some factual errors that don't really make a difference in the grand scheme of things but are enough to annoy petty people like me. For example, he states that 'Vikings resisted Christianity longer than any other people in Europe'. Not true, look at places like Finland and Lithuania (let alone the Jewish and Muslim communities of Europe as well?) He also makes it sounds like Saami people have only ever lived in the regions of Norway and Sweden, calling those in Finland and Russia simply 'Finnish and Russian natives' as if they're completely separate groups. Fact-checking isn't that hard!
Oliver also gives a great example of how not to do archaeology. Of a female burial, he writes that "The grave contained the skeleton of a young woman. I like to imagine she was lovely." Why though? Why do men have the need to see a woman whose body has long since decomposed as attractive? It's a sack of bones, man! Needless to say, when he talks about male burials, he doesn't say that he likes to imagine they were total hunks. Much more strange, however, is how he goes on to say that the necklace worn by the woman, made of the teeth of forty animals "speaks of a great and skilful hunter. It is not much of a leap to see it as a gift given only to the most important person in HIS world, HIS daughter or HIS wife." Well that is quite the leap, actually, automatically assigning the hunter to be a male and the woman to be a passive receiver of gifts. Did the burial come with a birthday card saying 'this necklace was made by your strong manly husband' or what...? At least forty animals were caught and you assume none of them might have been caught by the woman? Women couldn't have had the skills to make a necklace? This was particularly frustrating considering that just a few pages earlier he quoted two Roman sources describing how in the north, women hunted alongside men, and the he fails to even consider it in his own interpretation, choosing to base it on modern gender roles rather than, you know, archaeological evidence. Are we really sure that men are fit for academia when so often they seem to push modern agendas, in this case some fantasy of nuclear family?
Two stars because it wasn't that badly written so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that it might have got better in the remaining two thirds.
January 27, 2013
This is another detailed, fascinating, illuminating, non-boring book and I think is a real complete history of the Vikings in that just like the TV series Neil really investigates the origins of the Viking people before they became known as Vikings. So we learn how they migrated and occupied early Scandinavia during the bronze and iron ages, how they had local chieftans and how who owned the most metal was king. We look at how early burial mounds preceded to the more familiar boat-shaped grave markings and soon developed into full scale boat burials such as the Gokstad ship. We then learn about how each of the key viking people from Norway, Sweden and Denmark made their mark in the world, with the Swedes discovering and founding Russia, the Norwegians creating a great slave trade linking Dublin in Ireland to Istanbul in the East and of course the Danes who harassed the early French (Frank) empire, sailed and raided around the spanish coast and tops of north africa before too landing and forging a great connection in Istandbul by provided the Holy Roman Emporer with the finest of body guards before of course forging a path of war to Britain and all it's anglo-saxon riches. We come across great characters of the time such as Cnut the Great, Harald Hardrada, Floki who discovered Iceland, Eirik the Red and his son Lief the Lucky who discovered Greenland and then Vinland in North America, Harald Finehair and Harald Bluetooth, St Olaf, the Anglo-saxon rulers such as Alfred the Great, his grandson Athelstan, Ethelred the Unready, the unfortunate Harold Godwinson, and so many more. It really is a truly enlightening and enjoyable read and kept me occupied for many months. It is a superb partner for the BBC series which is available on DVD.
January 20, 2018
This is a refreshingly unique history of the Scandinavian pirates, adventurers, explorers, innovators, and colonists who we have come to know as the Vikings. Neil Oliver's approach to history is that of the archaeologist, carefully weighing the often scanty reliable records, examining artifacts and burials, and doing his best to approximately experience aspects of harsh Viking life in order to humanize these Scandinavian warriors. Some of the most engaging passages are his musings over artifacts, remains and experiences, reaching back through the mists of time to imagine what it was like to leave everything you had known behind and venture into uncharted territories, encountering people with strange customs and great walled cities like Constantinople, and perhaps dying in a foreign land, still wearing a treasured pin or brooch from a sweetheart or mother far away. Neil Oliver indicates that the Vikings' insatiable curiosity, daring, ambition and passion for living life to its fullest stem from the Norse worldview and religion. This book is sure to give the reader a glimpse of that Viking world, buried but not forgotten.
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