{"title":"Books by Neil Price","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780141984445","title":"The Children of Ash and Elm","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eTIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BOOK OF THE YEAR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people came to be who they were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in Scandinavian society that resulted from an economy geared to maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEspecially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly moving book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43206021939378,"sku":"9780141984445","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141984445.jpg?v=1786011048"},{"product_id":"9780415343503","title":"The Vikings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Vikings\u003c\/em\u003e provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period. \u003cem\u003eThe Vikings\u003c\/em\u003e explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers, and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process, they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation-states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten by leading experts in the period and exploring the society, economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56289650311541,"sku":"9780415343503","price":36.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780415343503_ad7ba176-0307-4843-8061-60a5c9395f9f.jpg?v=1786033014"},{"product_id":"9781842172605","title":"The Viking Way","description":"Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes  of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic  yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for  the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the  consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological  or historical research has been done to explore what this may  really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book  examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its  meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the  complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with  which these were underpinned. Combining strong elements of  eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain  of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the  future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the  men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of  the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image  of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move,  in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a  society permanently geared for war. In this fully-revised and  expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour  through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country,  meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the  fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and  animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields,  and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable  burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology,  history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of  Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book  shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308330070389,"sku":"9781842172605","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781842172605_a7073608-bc48-4579-98bb-c731f460604b.jpg?v=1786028401"},{"product_id":"crossing-midgard","title":"The Crossing Midgard","description":"The Sunday Times bestselling author of The Children of Ash and Elm and award-winning expert on the Vikings brings us even closer to their worldWho do we think of when we think about the Vikings? Most of us are familiar with the seafaring marauders who raided, traded and settled the coasts of Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries. In fact, those warriors made up only a small minority among a diverse people who had many roles and callings.   In this eye-opening and often moving book, Neil Price takes us on a journey across the Viking world, revealing the complex, varied and richly textured lives of those who inhabited it through the intimate context of their burials. Traversing a vast Scandinavian diaspora that stretched from the eastern Steppe all the way to Newfoundland, we meet townsfolk and farmers, the free and the enslaved, immigrants and diplomats, followers of many gods and the worshippers of one, sea-kings, shamans, sorceresses, and – of course – the ferocious pirates who gave the víkingar their name.   Unexpected encounters along the way challenge received wisdom about Norse culture, spiritual practices and politics, showing how they transformed their times and in doing so were changed themselves. How did a woman of Persian ancestry come to be interred in the richest Viking grave ever found? What do an arctic hunter and a Sámi nomad tell us about a fast-changing society’s notions of identity and belonging? How did these individuals see themselves, and what were their attitudes towards the elderly, infirm and children in their midst?Drawing on the latest archaeological research and scientific analysis, The Sea-King and the Sorceress brings us closer to understanding the lives and times of the Vikings. The era that bears their name will never seem so simple again.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57499461386613,"sku":"9780241611333","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780241611333.jpg?v=1786694779"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-neil-price.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}