Tuesday, February 12, 2019

The Vikings and Their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe by Philip Line


BOOK REVIEW-FIVE STARS
The Vikings and Their Enemies: Warfare in Northern Europe by Philip Line

A look at European history and driving forces that altered its courses to this day.
I loved this books approach to a complex subject that answers many questions overlooked by historians. It is definitely a five star good read.

Excerpts:
Viking ship explained:
It is no secret that Scandinavians were great seafarers in the Viking Era. Boats had always been of vital importance in Scandinavia. Waterways offered better communication routes than inland paths over mountains or through forest and marshland, and the vast majority of settlements had access to the sea via fjords.. Boats similar to this were still built in northern Russia up to the 1950s...In the Viking Era slavery was endemic and an integral part of the early medieval European economy...
There are many contemporary accounts of attacks on communities in which the adult men were slaughtered and women and children taken as captives.
Anyone taken as a slave could find themselves at the other end of Europe. This was not just a result of transport by sea to slave emporia in distant lands by Vikings, but movement of “goods,” in this case people, across mainland Europe…

No comments: