Norse America
The Story of a Founding Myth
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:25th Mar '21
Should be back in stock very soon
The story of the Vikings in North America as both fact and fiction, from the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries to the myths and fabrications about their presence there that have developed in recent centuries. Tracking the saga of the Norse across the North Atlantic to America, Norse America sets the record straight about the idea that the Vikings 'discovered' America. The journey described is a continuum, with evidence-based history and archaeology at one end, and fake history and outright fraud at the other. In between there lies a huge expanse of uncertainty: sagas that may contain shards of truth, characters that may be partly historical, real archaeology that may be interpreted through the fictions of saga, and fragmentary evidence open to responsible and irresponsible interpretation. Norse America is a book that tells two stories. The first is the westward expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic in the tenth and eleventh centuries, settling in Greenland and establishing a shore station at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland (to which a chapter of the book is devoted) and ending (but not culminating) in a fleeting and ill-documented presence on the shores of the North American mainland. The second is the appropriation and enhancement of the westward narrative by Canadians and Americans who want America to have had white North European origins, who therefore want the Vikings to have 'discovered' America, and who in the advancement of that thesis have been willing to twist and manufacture evidence in support of claims grounded in an ideology of racial superiority.
It has the potential to shift the debate on the Vinland journeys and the Norse discovery of North America in new and welcome directions. * Sverrir Jakobsson, History: Reviews of New Books *
Gordon Campbell's fascinating book explains how this questionable theory evolved into an argument for the cultural supremacy of people of northern European Protestant descent over Americans of different ancestry. * Tony Barber, Financial Times, Best History Books of 2021 *
Campbell excels in deconstructing the "fantasy archaeology" that has been used to bolster claims to Norse heritage, from genuine Viking-Age weapons deliberately buried and then "discovered", to outright fakes. [...] Norse America is a welcome deconstruction of a founding myth that remains dangerously politicized. * Jane Kershaw, Times Literary Supplement *
Norse America is an important book that equips the reader to interrogate the stories we think we know, and asks how - and why - we arrived where we are today. This highly readable volume is particularly suited to those who want to understand how the past is shaped in the present - often for explicit political aims. * Cat Jarman, BBC History Magazine *
[An] engaging and illuminating account ... this breadth, this willingness to see the Norse voyages to Greenland and Canada as part of a much bigger story, is the great strength of this book. * Judith Jesch, History Today *
This breezy, well-researched, and frequently hilarious book is one of the best recent take-downs of ethnic chauvinism I've seen in years... Campbell, a Scotsman with a sense of humor as dry as a finely-aged single malt, is merciless in dissecting every single alleged Norse artifact, archaeological site, and inscription, up to and including the Norse sagas themselves... [R]ead this book post-haste.You will not be disappointed. * Daily Kos *
Norse America provides an impressively complex overview of the pre-modern movements of northern Europeans and discusses a large array of forged objects and theories, thereby successfully addressing common misconceptions and conspiracy theories related to the medieval Norse presence in America. * Verena Höfig, Speculum 99/1 *
ISBN: 9780198861553
Dimensions: 224mm x 144mm x 25mm
Weight: 382g
272 pages