The Vikings: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions), 2nd Ediion by Julian D. Richards
English | January 21st, 2027 | ISBN: 0198948972 | 176 pages | True EPUB | 7.67 MB
The Vikings are of huge popular and academic interest, but 'Viking' is a nebulous concept: in different contexts, Vikings have been marauders, merchants, manufacturers, poets, explorers, democrats, statesmen, or warriors. It is also a relatively recent concept. Originally used to refer only to pirate activity, it came to be used as an ethnic term to refer to a whole people, and then as a chronological label, giving its name to the Viking Age. With this fluidity it didn't mean the same in tenth-century Scandinavia, fifteenth-century Iceland, and nineteenth-century England. In fact, our modern usage of Viking owes more to later re-inventions than any original reality.