Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Hardcover – Illustrated, August 25, 2020

I am more interested in the culture other than raiding and killing. This book was very insightful. Would recommend.

Amazing book about Norse History.

In Children of Ash and Elm, Price gives us a comprehensive history of the Vikings. Viking studies, we learn, is based on a vast corpus that the Vikings left to us: millions of graves, countless runestones, a few but remarkable sources written by Viking’s descendants, and contemporary accounts written by the Vikings’ associates. Viking studies is a rich field. The author’s expertise is evident throughout Children of Ash and Elm. Price is a master of this rich and complex area of study. Inevitably I spend many words on quibbles. I have only one serious complaint, but we will begin with the quibbles. The maps are good but require a magnifying glass. The print could have been made a little larger without causing crowding or overlaps. The maps are numbered but, since they are never referenced in the text, there is no reason to number them. There are a few sentences with big words that could have been rendered in simpler and more concrete language. We see “These Scandinavian immigrants seem to have merged rapidly with the Slavic population. This transition in material expressions of identity may represent the formation of a class-based community, in which expressions of ethnicity were not prioritised [British spelling] as a means of identifying between different groups.” What? I would have said that the Scandinavians quickly took up local customs and left it at that. Another quibble is that Price seems surprised by the lack of racism among Vikings, but racism is a recent phenomenon. In the Enlightenment, “environmentalism” prevailed: people from different parts of the world were thought to look different because of differences in climate. Both Europeans and Africans in America would eventually come to look like American Indians. Price can be forgiven; his expertise is in Vikings. My one serious complaint is that we learn that the Viking Age transitioned into the Medieval period, but I don’t know what that means. How did the Medieval period differ from the age of the Vikings? I don’t know. But Children of Ash and Elm came with a surprise bonus. One of the great historic rabbit holes is the Bronze Age Collapse: the end of Western Civilization that took place around 1180 BC in the eastern Mediterranean. We know enough about the Collapse to want to learn more, but it’s not out there. At least it’s not translated. But the hints we see about how the Collapse occurred are not hints at all in Viking history. There is a rise in piracy. The raids become more ambitious and complex. Potential victims switch sides. Groups of pirates band together and make collective decisions. The raids go farther afield. The raids entail the creation of semipermanent camps. Families go along with the raiders. Some settle permanently. The best way to dive into this rabbit hole is Cline’s excellent 1177 B.C: The Year Civilization Collapsed. But back to Children of Ash and Elm. Overall, it’s an enjoyable book. Perhaps not “a thrilling read” as the Wall Street Journal promises, but overall enjoyable and generally well-written. I learned a lot.

This is a good read for those of you who want to learn more about the Vikings and their times from a current archaeological point-of-view.Scientific measurements are getting more precise and nuanced all the time. Genetic traces can identify ethnicities and genders of persons long dead (A few surprises here), and radiocarbon isotopes can tell you where a person was born and raised, where they lived as an adult, and of course we already know (habeas corpus) where they died.We also have relatively new insights about the effects of certain natural catastrophies on matters such as climate change - it is now thought that a series of unusually large volcanic eruptions which occurred in the 6th century A.D. in southeastern Asia may have kicked up enough dust around the planet to cause the climate to cool precipitously for up to eighty years - an event which apparently caused a large scale die off of the Scandinavian population due to agricultural collapse, and which was the motivating driver behind the ‘Migration Period’, when northern peoples went south crashing into the Roman frontier in order to survive the cold-induced famine.The author also has some cautionary notes about what our northern friends were really like. One of my favorites was:‘When one looks closer, the real power,and the means of producing it, can take unexpected forms. Some years ago, a prominent historian despaired of the constant focus on the Vikings as maritime warriors, and instead stressed the fact that most of the Scandinavian population stayed at home on the land and never did any harm to anyone. The time of the Vikings, he claimed, was really ‘the Golden Age of the pig farmer.’ He had a point, though he got the animal wrong: The Scandinavian landscape of the late Viking period was a world of sheep.’ (For making ship’s sails and warm clothing)Also, everything hideous that the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan described with regard to that gang of Russian Volga Vikings he met up with has been shown archeologically to be more or less true.Bottom line is, Tolkien’s stories are about Vikings and their religion the way they should have been, not the way they actually were.PS. The author (Neil Price) is an engaging and informative speaker, and has lectures on this subject readily available on You-tube.

The most comprehensive history of the Viking Age to date! Recommend for anyone that is interested and wants to know more about this period in European History.

The book delves into the subject by numerous cultural aspects (religion, dress, transportation, etc.) instead of the more common chronological telling. It also avoids the pitfalls of over-generalizing. The book gives a good impression of how varied that world was.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but it’s a good read for the beginning of the Norse beliefs!

Neil Price gives readers an eye-opening account of the rise and fall of the Viking Age. His work gives a feel for how Vikings felt and perceived the world they lived in. He also puts the stereotype image of horn helmeted marauders into the larger social context of Viking society. Moreover, he writes well.

Fascinante, profundo y sorprendente. Nadie como Neil Price para sumergirte en el mundo de los vikingos. Es un ensayo erudito, pero se lee como una novela.

buona introduzione al periodo

I absolutely loved reading "The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings" by Neil Price. This book provided a comprehensive and detailed account of Viking history that was both informative and engaging.What I appreciated most about this book was how it offered a nuanced look into Viking society and culture beyond their military conquests. Price did an excellent job of exploring different aspects of Viking life, including their religion, art, and social structures, which gave me a better understanding of who the Vikings were and how they lived.The writing style was accessible and easy to follow, even when the topics became more complex. Price's use of different sources, including archaeological finds and literature, added depth to the narrative and made it feel like I was getting a full picture of Viking history.Overall, "The Children of Ash and Elm" is an excellent read for anyone interested in Viking history. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about this fascinating period in history.

Excellent examination of myth, saga, history, archaeology and science to bring the world of the inhabitants of early medieval Scandinavia to life, and put their impact on their world into context.