Vikings
Raiders from the Sea
Just when you thought it was time to permanently chisel history books into stone, new archaeological discoveries—helped along by high-tech sensing equipment—are upending a great deal of what we thought we knew about the first Americans, Neanderthals, cave art, Celts, Stone and Iron Age technology, ancient Troy, and so much more.
The recent discoveries are helping historians to better understand the diaspora of ancient peoples in prehistory. How early, for example, did the Carthaginians exit the Straits of Gibraltar and explore Africa’s west coast? Or, more intriguingly, there now seems little doubt that Leif Ericsson and the Vikings reached North America in 1000 CE. Remarkably, from 750 to 1100, the Vikings were exploring, raiding, colonizing, farming, imposing taxes, and/or generally terrorizing a huge swath of the world, from Iraq to Greenland, Morocco to Russia, the complete Mediterranean region and British Isles.
Vikings: Raiders from the Sea, a new installment in The Casemate Short History Series, details Viking prowess through the lens of military history: ships, weapons, armor, raiding strategy, and their unique militarized society. Other recent releases in the series include Knights: Chivalry and Violence, Gladiators: Fighting to the Death in Ancient Rome, and Greek Warriors: Hoplites and Heroes.
Reviewed by
Matt Sutherland
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