Vikings in the East

We commonly consider the Viking Age as being a Western European phenomenon. This is not surprising, given the Viking impact on communities either side of the English Channel and across the British Isles. However, it also had a crucial eastern aspect that provided a key factor prompting the Viking raids in the first place.

Changes taking place in the distant Islamic Caliphate disrupted the flow of Islamic silver to Scandinavia. For years, Islamic merchants and their middlemen had carried silver to northern Europe. There they traded it for slaves, furs and amber. Facing this change, raiding in the West offered an alternative way to get their hands on precious metals and slaves.  

At the same time, the forest products of the eastern Baltic and the supply of slaves from there drew Swedish adventurers eastward. For several reasons, the Viking phenomenon increasingly had an Eastern Front.

In this brilliantly timely book, historian Martyn Whittock explains how it was a Viking-Slav dynasty which created the first Russian state, and how a rivalry between Viking leaders set up the states that would later become Russia and Ukraine, with consequences we are still living with today.

Vikings in the East is a fascinating and deeply researched historical account of the origins of Russian power and of the psychology of Russian leadership.