Showing titles in Scandinavia

The Viking Age - from 750 to 1050 saw an unprecedented expansion of the Scandinavian peoples into the wider world. As traders and raiders, explorers and colonists, they ranged from eastern North America to the Asian steppe. But for centuries, the Vikings have been seen through the eyes of others, distorted to suit the tastes of medieval clerics and Elizabethan playwrights, Victorian imperialists, Nazis, and more. None of these appropriations capture the real Vikings, or the richness and sophistication of their culture.

The Wolf Age takes listeners on a thrilling journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia. Warfare, plotting, backstabbing, and bribery abound as Tore Skeie skillfully weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization as he entertainingly brings the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.

In late March of 1943, four commandos arrive in northern Norway with a mission of establishing a base for sabotage operations. Before they can unload their cutter, they are betrayed, as a German Schnell boat arrives and turns the quiet fjord into a battle zone. Only one man, Jan Baalsrud, surrvives the attack. This is the story of his perilous journey to freedom. Wounded, the dauntless soldier swims icy fjord waters, climbs snow-laden granite peaks, endures violent snowstorms and is hurled off a mountain by an avalanche.

Valkyries: the female supernatural beings that choose who dies and who lives on the battlefield. They protect some, but guide spears, arrows, and sword blades into the bodies of others. Viking myths about valkyries attempt to elevate the banality of war - to make the pain and suffering, the lost limbs and deformities, the piles of lifeless bodies of young men, glorious and worthwhile. Rather than their death being futile, it is their destiny and good fortune, determined by divine beings.

Det var tidigt sjuttiotal. En politisk tid. Unga entusiastiska journalister ägnade sig åt att gräva i statens hemligheter och avslöjade en spionorganisation som inte ens riksdagen kände till. Det ledde till en våldsam konfrontation. Staten slog tillbaka med polisrazzior och fängelsestraff. Många minns skriverierna runt IB-affären. Men vad var det egentligen som hände? Hade maktens män skäl att slå till så oerhört hårt? Var rikets säkerhet verkligen i fara? Eller handlade det om rent förtryck av det fria ordet? Som så ofta är fallet överträffar sanningen dikten.

1920-talet beskrevs massmedierna som demokratins dödgrävare. Där spreds hat, lögner och propaganda snabbare än någonsin tidigare i historien. I detta hav av information skulle folk inte klara av att skilja sant från falskt, utan följa den som väckte starkast känslor. På 2020-talet beskrivs de sociala medierna likadant.

In a saga reminiscent of Game of Thrones and The Last Kingdom, Battle for the Island Kingdom reveals the life-and-death struggle for power which changed the course of history. The six decades leading up to 1066 were defined by bloody wars and intrigues, in which three peoples vied for supremacy over the island kingdom. In this epic retelling, Don Hollway (The Last Viking) recounts the clashes of Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Normans, their warlords and their conniving queens.

Häxprocessernas tid är en oerhört omskriven epok och fortsätter att fascinera. Men allt är inte som vi förletts att tro. Vår bild av händelserna har blivit mer myt och politisk saga än verklighet. Och häxjakten är förvisso den märkligaste följden av Karl IX:s bibliska lag, men antalet dödsoffer överskuggades vida av de som fick sätta livet till för andra sedlighetsbrott, såsom tidelag och barnamord.

Selma Lagerlöf ist die erste Frau, die den Literatur-Nobelpreis verliehen bekam. Ihre Prosa besticht durch eine überaus klare und flüssige Sprache, welche Situationen herbeiführt, innerhalb derer die vermittelten Gedanken tiefes moralisches und zwischenmenschliches Verständnis beweisen. Sehr lebensnah und humorvoll mit starkem Gespür für die menschliche Natur ist Lagerlöf in der Lage Charaktere zu schaffen, deren Geschichten berühren und zum Träumen und Nachdenken anregen.

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn't Disneyland but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long, dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries. What is the secret to their success? Are happy Danes born or made?

Committed to a life of learning and teaching, author Erik Hansen shares his knowledge and passion in this book. As a recognized expert in Norse history and mythology, his interest in this fascinating culture was sparked by his Norwegian ancestry. If you share that passion for ancient history and religion, this book is for you.

Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Vikings surged from their Scandinavian homeland to trade, raid and invade along the coasts of Europe. Their influence and expeditions extended from Newfoundland to Baghdad, their battles were as far-flung as Africa and the Arctic. But were they great seafarers or desperate outcasts, noble heathens or oafish pirates, the last pagans or the first of the modern Europeans?

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return.

Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into Catrine Jarman's temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think—that with them came people from the Middle East, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain.

In contrast to their Danish and Norwegian cousins, Swedish Vikings traveled east rather than west in search of riches, land, and power. The extensive river systems of Russia provided economic and military “superhighways” to the adventurers from the north who journeyed down them all the way to the Black Sea and Constantinople in search of fame and riches. In Captivating History’s History of Sweden, you will learn more about these Swedish adventurers along with other parts of Sweden’s fascinating history.

In AD 793 Norse warriors struck the English isle of Lindisfarne and laid waste to it. Wave after wave of Norse "sea wolves" followed in search of plunder, land, or a glorious death in battle. Much of the British Isles fell before their swords, and the continental capitals of Paris and Aachen were sacked in turn. Turning east, they swept down the uncharted rivers of central Europe, captured Kiev, and clashed with mighty Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Oldtidssagaerne har fra gammel tid spillet en enorm rolle for vores viden om den ældre danske historie; uden oldtidssagaerne ville den danske sagnhistorie ganske enkelt være både kortere og kedeligere. Med dette kulturhistorisk vigtige oversættelsesprojekt tilvejebringes den første samlede oversættelse af oldtidssagaerne. I et mundret og moderne dansk gøres samtlige oldtidssagaer tilgængelige for danske læsere. Seriens i alt otte bind er illustreret af Peter Brandes, som har skabt ni nye træsnit i farver til hvert bind. Ligeledes har han stået for typografi og omslag.

Born in Massachusetts, Jared Bibler relocated to Iceland in 2004 only to find himself in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis a handful of years later. Personally wiped out and seeking to uncover the truth about a collapse that brought the pastoral country to its knees, he became the lead investigator into some of the largest financial crimes in the world. This work helped Iceland to famously become the only country to jail its bank CEOs in the wake of the 2008 crisis.

Based on events that took place between 960 and 1020 AD, Njál 's Saga is a mesmerizing drama about a multigenerational cycle of violence and retribution, and the feuds and passions that perpetuate it. The eponymous sage Njál, known for his keen legal mind, is one of Iceland's pre-eminent men, along with Gunnar of Hlidarendi, a fierce and formidable warrior married to the diabolical Hallgerd, whose conniving instigates the interminable pattern of romance, action and brutality - until one unforgivable act ends it all.

In 871, three of England’s four kingdoms were overrun by Vikings, the ruthless, all-conquering Scandinavian raiders who terrorized early medieval Europe. With the Norsemen murdering one king with arrows and torturing another to death by ripping out his lungs, the prospects that faced the kingdom of Wessex were bleak. Worse still, the Saxons were now led by a young man barely out of his teens who was more interested in God than fighting.