The Vikings

A New History

By: Neil Oliver

Narrated by: James A. Gillies

Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

The Vikings famously took no prisoners, relished cruel retribution, and prided themselves on their bloodthirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the West and as far as Baghdad in the East. As the Vikings did not write their own history, we have to discover it for ourselves; and that discovery, as Neil Oliver reveals, tells an extraordinary story of a people who, from the brink of destruction, reached a quarter of the way around the globe and built an empire that lasted nearly 200 years.

Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.

©2013 Neil Oliver (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Anyone interested in finding out more about these real-life raiders will enjoy everything Oliver reveals." ( Publishers Weekly)

Informative. A whole new look at Viking history

Very thorough and informative work. Not thrilling, but solidly interesting. You will leave with a wealth of knowledge from 2000 years of Northern European history surrounding the rise and assimilation of the Vikings.

Great Book

Oliver deals fantastically with the “what we know and what we believe” conundrum that surely faces all writers of history. I would call it literary integrity; parsing the known from the hypothetical. Yet he does so in such away that does not diminish the imagination and in fact, his attention to this issue only heightens the whole experience. Add a fantastic voice to convey it all and I was enthralled.

Great! so much to learn! wow!

one of the very best books i have ha the pleasure of listening to! go for it!

Great listen!

I was very pleased with the prehistoric background. The back story placed the primary details in the perfect context.

very informative

Lots of facts that are missing from the Hollywood versions. I found it very informative and interesting the difference between what actually happened and what Hollywood has come up with in the series the Vikings.

Excellent History

Fascinating subject matter and excellent presentation, both the style of the writing, and the superb performance of the narrator. Discusses the predecessors of the Nordic Viking culture, the Viking age itself, and the assimilation of that culture into Europe.

The Vikings

This book brought to life my own ancestors. Names from my family tree became living, breathing entities in my mind. The book was well written, and the narrator was engaging. I highly recommend it.

Vikings is a Must Read

I am a big Neil Oliver fan. His history of Scotland is fantastic. This is even better. In part what makes this so riveting are his personal reflections based upon actual site visits. His descriptions of the traditional foods as well as his own personal assessments of their smell and tastes are magnificent and made me laugh out loud. My commute to work has been very enjoyable.

Awesome book.

I loved this book, it was great to listen to no matter where I was and I will enjoy writing my college research paper on vikings because of this book.

History

I was always curious and fascinated by the Viking history, but learned from different sources - many from fiction peace’s. This book helped me not only to finally understand their history but also gave a bigger picture of their great influence in several parts of the world. My only note would be that the book doesn’t necessarily follows a timeline from and gets confuse sometimes.

Anyhow, it is a great book, full of history and with great comments from the author that helps you to understand and place in context several parts and achievements of the Vikings.