Original: $40.22
-65%$40.22
$14.08The Story
For four hundred years, Norse settlers battled to make southern Greenland a new, sustainable home. They strove against gales and winter cold, food shortages and in the end a shifting climate. The remnants they left behind speak of their determination to wrest an existence at the foot of this vast, icy and challenging wilderness. Yet finally, seemingly suddenly, they vanished; and their mysterious disappearance in the fifteenth century has posed a riddle to scholars ever since. What happened to the lost Viking colonists? For centuries people assumed their descendants could still be living, so expeditions went to find them: to no avail. Robert Rix tells the gripping story of the missing pioneers, placing their poignant history in the context of cultural discourse and imperial politics. Ranging across fiction, poetry, navigation, reception and tales of exploration, he expertly delves into one of the most contested questions in the annals of colonization.
- An authoritative, highly engaging account of a mystery and of a vanishing which will appeal to all those intrigued and baffled by the story of the missing Vikings of Greenland
- Strong appeal to all those interested in medieval history and accounts of exploration
- Offers deep insights into the consequences of colonization while also placing its exciting narrative in the wider context of literary and reception history as well as popular culture
- Author is an acknowledged authority on the literature and culture of Scandinavian exploration
Description
For four hundred years, Norse settlers battled to make southern Greenland a new, sustainable home. They strove against gales and winter cold, food shortages and in the end a shifting climate. The remnants they left behind speak of their determination to wrest an existence at the foot of this vast, icy and challenging wilderness. Yet finally, seemingly suddenly, they vanished; and their mysterious disappearance in the fifteenth century has posed a riddle to scholars ever since. What happened to the lost Viking colonists? For centuries people assumed their descendants could still be living, so expeditions went to find them: to no avail. Robert Rix tells the gripping story of the missing pioneers, placing their poignant history in the context of cultural discourse and imperial politics. Ranging across fiction, poetry, navigation, reception and tales of exploration, he expertly delves into one of the most contested questions in the annals of colonization.
- An authoritative, highly engaging account of a mystery and of a vanishing which will appeal to all those intrigued and baffled by the story of the missing Vikings of Greenland
- Strong appeal to all those interested in medieval history and accounts of exploration
- Offers deep insights into the consequences of colonization while also placing its exciting narrative in the wider context of literary and reception history as well as popular culture
- Author is an acknowledged authority on the literature and culture of Scandinavian exploration
