Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Vikings and their Ages: Definitions and Evidence Chapter 2. The Viking World: Geography and Environment Chapter 3. The Viking Diaspora Chapter 4. Gender and Family Chapter 5. Cults, Beliefs and Myths Chapter 6. Networks and Identities Bibliography Index
Judith Jesch is Professor of Viking Studies at the University of Nottingham. Her previous publications include Women in the Viking Age (1991), Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age. The Vocabulary of Runic Inscriptions and Skaldic Verse (2001) and The Scandinavians from the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century: an ethnographic perspective (2002).
"Many histories have been written of the Viking Age, which saw the
explosion of Norse speakers out of Scandinavia, to spread over most
of the then-known world (and then some); practically all such
histories are cast in precisely the same mould. The concept of
‘diaspora’ offers an innovative and powerful tool for recasting
this story in a new form: laying emphasis on the interconnectedness
and long duration of far-flung Norse communities, on their sense of
shared (even if mythical) heritage and their sometimes competitive
fraternity, it challenges us to see complexity in place of
uniformity, hybridity and contingency in place of continuity, and
feedback loops in place of linear development. In this book, Judith
Jesch, one of the foremost scholars of the Viking Age in our
generation, opens the door and invites us in to the diasporic
theatre; a virtuoso linguistic, archaeological, epigraphic and
literary performance ensues. Readers of this book will emerge with
some new answers to old puzzles, but, more importantly, with a slew
of entirely new questions on their minds."Oren Falk, Cornell
University, USA"Judith Jesch’s The Viking Diaspora is a fresh look
at an significant aspect of the Viking Age. Students and
established scholars alike will learn much from this widely-ranging
examination of settlement and cultural cohesion. With a narrative
that is complimented by case studies of specific topics such as
steatite or Valkyries, Jesch takes her readers beyond the popular
perception of the Vikings and gives an important assessment of
their community."Benjamin Hudson, Pennsylvania State University,
USA"An excellent study not just of the Viking diaspora per se, but
also of the relevance of this term to the period of Viking
expansion and its aftermath. A genuinely interdisciplinary text, it
avoids pedestrian historical narrative in favour of an approach
that combines natural, artefactual and linguistic evidence to
explore themes such as gender and family, religion, networks and
identity. A fresh approach to Viking migration, settlement and
diaspora."
Stephen H. Harrison, University of Glasgow, UK
"Many histories have been written of the Viking Age, which saw the
explosion of Norse speakers out of Scandinavia, to spread over most
of the then-known world (and then some); practically all such
histories are cast in precisely the same mould. The concept of
‘diaspora’ offers an innovative and powerful tool for recasting
this story in a new form: laying emphasis on the interconnectedness
and long duration of far-flung Norse communities, on their sense of
shared (even if mythical) heritage and their sometimes competitive
fraternity, it challenges us to see complexity in place of
uniformity, hybridity and contingency in place of continuity, and
feedback loops in place of linear development. In this book, Judith
Jesch, one of the foremost scholars of the Viking Age in our
generation, opens the door and invites us in to the diasporic
theatre; a virtuoso linguistic, archaeological, epigraphic and
literary performance ensues. Readers of this book will emerge with
some new answers to old puzzles, but, more importantly, with a slew
of entirely new questions on their minds."Oren Falk, Cornell
University, USA"Judith Jesch’s The Viking Diaspora is a fresh look
at an significant aspect of the Viking Age. Students and
established scholars alike will learn much from this widely-ranging
examination of settlement and cultural cohesion. With a narrative
that is complimented by case studies of specific topics such as
steatite or Valkyries, Jesch takes her readers beyond the popular
perception of the Vikings and gives an important assessment of
their community."Benjamin Hudson, Pennsylvania State University,
USA"An excellent study not just of the Viking diaspora per se, but
also of the relevance of this term to the period of Viking
expansion and its aftermath. A genuinely interdisciplinary text, it
avoids pedestrian historical narrative in favour of an approach
that combines natural, artefactual and linguistic evidence to
explore themes such as gender and family, religion, networks and
identity. A fresh approach to Viking migration, settlement and
diaspora."
Stephen H. Harrison, University of Glasgow, UK This is an
enormously inspiring book and should be recommended as obligatory
reading among students of Viking archaeology, Norse language and
literature and Viking history. The strength is that it takes a wide
variety of evidence serious and demonstrates how the interweaving
as seen through the diasporic lens, presents us with a much more
rounded picture than we usually get from overviews of the Viking
age as written from the perspective of these different scientific
disciplines involved in the field.
Karen Schousboe, Medieval Histories
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