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A compilation of enticing tales from Iceland. Foreword by Magnus Magnusson. ... Read more

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An anthropological exploration of Icelandic history, society and culture as the importance of language and texts ranging from the medieval Commonwealth to the modern nation-state is investigated. ... Read more

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The history of medieval Europe is incomplete if it does not take Iceland into account. Jesse Byock's reassessment of medieval Iceland uses all the available sources--the medieval Icelanders' historical writings, extensive saga literature, and intricate laws--to explore the way Iceland's social order functioned. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Outstanding work!
In this book, Professor Byock seeks to address a number of previously unsolved problems in Icelandic studies, including the development of the power structure of Iceland and some areas relating to the precise role of the chieftains.He succeeds quite well, and this work is sure to be a classic in the field.

The bulk of the work describes the role of the chieftains relative to the bondir and the landless tenant farmers.He paints a picture which shows how different Iceland was from other Scandinavian nations, and shows how the society evolved with the chieftains functioning largely as power brokers and lawyers.

Of particular interest is the analysis given to a few specific topics, such as the sources of income for the chieftains, and the social structures which provided mechanisms mutually beneficial political relationships.

Great Reference Concerning Medieval Vikings!
This is a great reference!It is written by "The Expert" in the field and is both factual and interesting!If you like reading about the vikings---look no further!!

Just what I was looking for
If you're looking for a book which discusses various aspects of the culture and society of Medieval Iceland, look no further!I found this book to be a wonderful read, providing many of the details I was looking for.It does just what a good book should do imho - provide valuable insight AND additional references to other books which illuminate others areas I'm interested in.

Just what I was looking for
If you're looking for a book which discusses various aspects of the culture and society of Medieval Iceland, look no further!I am finding this book to be a wonderful read, providing many of the details I was looking for.It does just what a good book should do imho - provide valuable insight AND additional references to other books which illuminate other areas I am interested in.

Well-Researched!Provides New Insight on Iceland!
Jesse Byock's work provides a fresh insight into a fascinating subject.A "must read" for anyone interested in the vikings and medieval Scandanavia. ... Read more

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Pack your bags! We're headed to Iceland. On this whirlwind tour, you'll learn all about the country's landscape, culture, people, and more. We'll explore Iceland's steamy hot springs and fiery volcanoes. We'll also see a celebration called Sun Coffee and even try a plate of shark meat. A special section introduces Iceland's capital, language, population, and flag. Hop on board and take a fun-filled look at your world. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This is an excellent and very interesting overview of Iceland, the Land of Fire and Ice!
Iceland, located in Europe, is its "second-largest island."If you look on the map in this book you can easily see that it is surrounded by water, you can locate, volcanoes, glaciers, geysers, several cities, and you'll be able to point out its capital city, Reykjavik.You can see that it lies just below the Arctic Circle.An explorer named the country, Iceland, after spending a "long and icy winter there."It is a windy, rainy country, but also a very beautiful one.During the summer months "the sun can be seen almost all night," but during the winter there may be as little as two hours of sunlight each day.

Iceland has been dubbed the "Land of Fire and Ice" because there are numerous "fiery volcanoes" and large inland glacial areas.Another unusual feature of the country is the many hot springs that dot the land. Among the many animals Iceland can claim are puffins, arctic foxes, seals, whales, and the sturdy Icelandic horse.Do you believe in trolls and elves?Some Icelanders do and in fact you will get to see a picture of a large rock in Grundarfjorour where some believe that elves live.There are many interesting things you'll learn about Iceland.You'll learn a bit about its history, where the people came from, their religion, the language, its literature, art, music, how people are named, you'll learn about the importance of family life, their foods, industry, education, their holidays, and you'll learn about their favorite sports.Do you know what glima is?If not, you may not know as much about Iceland as you thought you did.

This is an excellent and very interesting overview of Iceland, the Land of Fire and Ice.Most children who open the pages of this book will become instantly drawn to this fascinating country.There are numerous well-chosen photographs that bring the text to life.For example, we are treated to a photograph of an active volcano on the island of Heimaey that is billowing smoke into the air.There are several sidebars that add quite a bit of information that is not only informative, but fun.One of these is a short listing of familiar "Family Words" along with a pronunciation guide.In the back of the book is some information on Ireland's flag, some "Fast Facts," an index, a glossary, and additional recommended book and website resources to explore. ... Read more

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Dubbed by the New York Times as "one of the most sought-after legal academics in the county," William Ian Miller presents the arcane worlds of the Old Norse studies in a way sure to attract the interest of a wide range of readers. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking delves beneath the chaos and brutality of the Norse world to discover a complex interplay of ordering and disordering impulses. Miller's unique and engaging readings of ancient Iceland's sagas and extensive legal code reconstruct and illuminate the society that produced them.

People in the saga world negotiated a maze of violent possibility, with strategies that frequently put life and limb in the balance. But there was a paradox in striking the balance--one could not get even without going one better. Miller shows how blood vengeance, law, and peacemaking were inextricably bound together in the feuding process.

This book offers fascinating insights into the politics of a stateless society, its methods of social control, and the role that a uniquely sophisticated and self-conscious law played in the construction of Icelandic society.

"Illuminating."--Rory McTurk, Times Literary Supplement

"An impressive achievement in ethnohistory; it is an amalgam of historical research with legal and anthropological interpretation. What is more, and rarer, is that it is a pleasure to read due to the inclusion of narrative case material from the sagas themselves."--Dan Bauer, Journal of Interdisciplinary History ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Amazing
The opening of the book is enough to grab anyone with an interest in how society works.Iceland is unique in that it had no centralized government for hundreds of years and it's tribal society was incredible transitory.The author examines law and order in an essentially anarchist society and how blood feud became another instrument in regulating society.A well written and paced book.Even though it is an academic work, anyone can keep pace.Highly unique and one of the most compelling reads out there.

Opens a Wide New World...
I read this book while a student in Miller's semi-infamous class "Blood Feuds" at the University of Michigan Law School.I went into the class thinking that it would be interesting and fun, but that I wouldn't learn much from it, since I already had such an extensive familiarity with the Icelandic sagas:as an undergraduate I had translated some of them from Old Norse to English, and I had read most of the rest of them several times over in English translation.

Yes, it was interesting and yes, it was fun, but man! were my eyes opened as to how much I had to learn about the sagas and about the culture within which they were written.

There are two main reasons to read this book.First, to learn history.The history of ninth to fourteenth century Iceland is incredible, and the culture fascinating.Theirs was a culture that knew no central or even local government, no law enforcement infrastructure, and no arms control.And yet the Icelanders developed a complex system of law, essentially codifying the blood feud (which tradition still governs dispute resolution in places like Afghanistan and rural Macedonia), according to which civil injustice could be roughly corrected.Their example has much to teach us about human nature unadulterated by the State.

Second, Bloodtaking is an unparalleled gateway into the sagas as literature.Despite my intimate familiarity with every line of, for example, Hrafnkel's saga, until I read Miller's book I had only the most inadequate appreciation for how tightly it is constructed, how elegantly and efficiently it was drafted.The sagas are only vaguely comparable to the very best English-language short stories; the skill that went into them is comparable to that of a Dante or a Shakespeare.

A modern reader is not culturally prepared to receive the sagas as they would have been by a medieval Icelander.Miller's book provides the small set of cultural factoids that create relevance where otherwise detail might seem pointless or obscure, and reveals the saga-writers' penchant for humorous understatement and emphasis by ellipse.Armed with a relatively small set of cultural facts and with an eye for a small set of saga tropes, the reader has access to a whole new literary world.

Whatever your bent, Bloodtaking makes for fascinating reading. ... Read more

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The nomination process has been called 'the secret garden of politics' - and for good reasons. The process by which candidates for election are being screened and selected is among the least understood and researched political phenomena, even though this process is so closely linked to the power structure within political parties. Nominations are mechanisms for selecting candidates, but also for holding the incumbent delegates responsible. In this book, nomination processes in four Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway - are analysed and evaluated as instruments of democracy. The authors compare institutions, procedures and unwritten norms. The book in particular addresses questions about the citizens' ability to influence the nomination processes. The process is not only modelled in traditional terms of representation, but also as a principal-agent relationship. Despite great institutional similarities, the nomination processes and their outcomes vary considerably across the four countries. In particular, significant differences are found with regard to the extent of citizen control.The book provides a first mapping of this central feature of Nordic politics and thus also serves the comparative purpose of differentiating between otherwise similar political systems. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Very good
I highly recommend this book for someone who wishes to have a greater understanding of social history and economy in medieval Iceland.Written by an anthropologist it uses a good combination of historical record, written literature (sagas) and anthropological technique to describe the economic conditions of Iceland during this period.

It is a very short book but is nice to have for the collection:

Chapters include: Production Chiefly Consumption Politics Exchange Kinship, Church, and King Ideology

In the conclusion it has a nice justification for the use of the saga as source for social information. ... Read more

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Chapters: Banks of Iceland, Icesave Dispute, History of Landsbanki, Kaupthing Bank, Glitnir, Exista, Sparisjóðabanki, Straumur Investment Bank, List of Banks in Iceland, Íslandsbanki, Central Bank of Iceland, Nbi, Sparisjóður Reykjavíkur Og Nágrennis, Arion Banki, Mp Investment Bank. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 86. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Icesave dispute is a diplomatic dispute that began in 2008 between Iceland on one hand and the United Kingdom and the Netherlands on the other. The dispute is centered on the retail creditors of the Icelandic bank Landsbanki, which offered online savings accounts under the "Icesave" brand. The bank was placed into receivership by the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority (FME) on 7 October 2008. As a result, more than 400,000 depositors with Icesave accounts in the UK and the Netherlands were unable to access their money for at least 6 to 8 weeks, while waiting for payout from the Deposit Guarantee Schemes in these countries. Much of the public controversy arose around the UK's use of what the Icelandic government described as "anti-terrorism legislation" against Iceland. Icesave was an online savings account brand owned and operated by Landsbanki from 20062008 that offered savings accounts. It operated in two countries the United Kingdom (since October 2006) and the Netherlands (since May 2008). However, Landsbanki's 2007 annual report stated there were intentions to roll the brand out to additional territories throughout 2008 and 2009. In the UK, Icesave's marketing slogan was "clear difference", and it offered three types of savings account: an immediate-access savings account, a cash ISA (Individual Savings Account), and a range of fixed-rate bonds. Interest rates on these accounts were over 6%. At the time of Landsbanki...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=9041274 ... Read more

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The voyages of the Norsemen, or Vikings, across the North Atlantic to Iceland c. 860-70, Greenland c. 986, and the east coast of North America was a turning point in world history and one of the greatest adventures of all time.In Norse Atlantic Saga, Gwyn Jones re-tells the dramatic story of the Viking voyages in vivid, striking prose and includes translations of six classic Viking epics:"The Book os the Icelanders," "The Book of the Settlements", "The Greenlander's Saga", "Eirik the Red's Saga", "Karlsefni's Voyage to Vinland", and "The Story of Einar Sokkason". Published to great acclaim in 1964, The Norse Atlantic Saga is now available in an expanded edition, which takes into account the tremendous gains that have been made in Viking scholarship in the past 22 years:the discrediting of the Vinland Map, greatly extended knowledge of the Vikings' life in Greenland and proof that Norsemen did indeed land and establish a settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the New World.For this expanded edition, Jones has largely rewritten his account of the Viking voyages, and added numerous new maps, plates, and illustrations, as well as appendices in which Robert McGhee, Thomas H. McGovern and Brigitta Linderoth Wallace, three prominent archaeologists, discuss their recent findings.The incorporation of this latest research into Gwyn Jones's narrative account of the Viking story guarantees its continued importance to Viking scholars as well as to readers interested in tales of bravery and heroic adventure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Absorbing -- also includes original major sources
An excellent summary, well told, of what is known about Norse discovery, settlement and developments in Iceland, Greenland, and their farthest overseas reach, North America. Although no one has "the" definitive answers to the mystery of just how, why and exactly when the Norse Greenlanders' Eastern Settlement (really southern) disappeared after enduring for 500 years, Jones examines most of the likely possibilities with discernment in sorting them out. The last definite word we have from Norse Greenland was in 1410 when a group of Icelandic visitors left to return to Iceland after a four-year stay, including a young Greenland woman recently married to one of them. There was little hint of Greenlanders' society being in any threatening decline at that point: although life was not easy, that was nothing new. The best evidence indicates that the last of Greenland's Norse held on at least until the end of the 1400s and more likely well into the 1500s. Theories abound about causes: most propose a combination of factors, but we don't really know.

Yes, we do have reports of some violent incidents between Norse and groups of "skraelings" (the Inuit or so-called Eskimo) who had not appeared as far south as the Norse areas until well into the 1300s after more than three centuries of sole Norse settlement there. But there are also reports and evidence of both trade and other friendly and even sheltering contacts. The contacts were limited and infrequent with little or no territorial conflict involved, the Norse living mostly along the inner fjords where there was pasture for their flocks, and the Inuit on the outer coasts where sea hunting was much better. On this, Carl Sauer made a telling comment: "That the unwarlike Eskimos should have driven the Greenlanders back and finally eliminated them by force is quite out of character for both groups." Also the Norwegian Arctic explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen, well acquainted with Eskimo culture firsthand, had earlier objected to such claims. (In a recent best-seller Jared Diamond has revived the claim but adduces no new evidence.) There is some evidence of piratic attacks and kidnappings from outside, with English and Basque freebooters and some others suspected, but which without further information remains a dark suspicion unproven to scholars' satisfaction. At any rate it is certain that regular contact with Europe ultimately dried up, and Greenland's "rediscovery" was to wait until the end of the sixteenth century with the Frobisher and Davis expeditions, which found Eskimos but no Norsemen.

As for Vinland, Jones gives a good and very interesting account of what is known of those ventures and withdrawal. While rather noncommital as to where the settlement Leif established was located, he inclines toward Helge Ingstad's view that the site he and his wife uncovered at Newfoundland's northern tip is it. (See my other reviews for different opinions on this.)

The second half of the book is devoted to the sources, and a fascinating collection it is. Starting with translated text of the old Icelandic manuscripts "The Book of the Icelanders" (Islendingabok) and "The Book of the Settlements" (Landnamabok), Jones then gives a full translation of both sagas relating the Vinland ventures, plus the short saga of Einar Sokkason, the latter centered on a pair of dramatic events in Greenland which came to a head about 1132. Additional material is found in the appendixes, including an Inuit folk tale of a bloody incident and reprisals between a group of Eskimos and Norse (recounted grippingly in Jane Smiley's novel "The Greenlanders"); also an explanation of finds uncovered at a Norse farmsite in Greenland's former Western (really northern) Settlement; and an interpretation of Newfoundland's L'Anse aux Meadows site by Birgitta Linderoth Wallace who, after the Ingstads had finished their work became Director of the Parks Canada Project there and has since been its on-site authority.

Altogether, "The Norse Atlantic Saga" is a rich source of information on those activities, very readable and well presented. This Second Edition (1986) has been rewritten and contains much significant revision from the First (1964); the general outlines of this story have changed little in the years since. But Erik Wahlgren's "The Vikings and America" (also 1986) should be read as a counterweight to some of Jones' assumptions about the North American phase, as should Carl O. Sauer's "Northern Mists" (1968, also reviewed), which was ahead of its time and his perceptions still very much worth considering although studiously ignored by most scholars today if they've even heard of them.

Summation AND the Original Texts
An excellent book for anyone interested in the Norse explorations of the North Atlantic:Iceland, Greenland, and Vinland.Jones not only gives a good history, still relevant despite the 1964 copyright, but gives thelatter half of the book over to English translations of the originalsources:The Book of the Icelanders, The Book of the Settlements, TheGreenlanders' Saga, Eirik the Red's Saga, Karlsefni's Voyage to Vinland,and The Story of Einar Sokkason. ... Read more

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While Iceland is the second largest inhabited island in Europe, with only 313,000 inhabitants in 2007, the Icelanders form one of the smallest independent nations in the world. Around two-thirds of the population lives in the capital, Reykjav'k, and its suburbs, while the rest is spread around the inhabitable area of the country. Until fairly recently the Icelandic nation was unusually homogeneous, both in cultural and religious terms; in 1981, around 98 percent of the nation was born in Iceland and 96 percent belonged to the Lutheran state church or other Lutheran religious sects. In 2007, these numbers were down to 89 and 86 percent respectively, reflecting the rapidly growing multicultural nature of Icelandic society.The A to Z of Iceland traces Iceland's history and provides a compass for the direction the country is heading. This is done through its chronology, introductory essays, appendixes, map, bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions and significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects. ... Read more

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The two sagas here presented in translation with commentary belong to a class of medieval Icelandic texts commonly called family sagas. There are some three dozen of these sagas, composed for the most part in the thirteenth century, which tell stories about leading Icelandic figures and families from the time of the island's colonization around 900 to the middle of the eleventh century. This book contains the only complete translation of Ljosvetninga saga in English and the only English commentary on either saga. The authors aim to present the basic material needed for an informed reading of the Icelandic sagas. Both represent a school that urges that the sagas be refocused as historical documents, and they represent the two approaches to rehistorian (Andersson), the other a social and legal historian (Miller). One attempts to tie the sagas more closely to medieval literature and oral literature in general. The other attempts to define the relationship between the sagas and the social systems in which they evolved, and is much influenced by American legal realism and law-and-society scholarship.The authors assert that the case can be plausibly made that the sagas at times surpass the quality of other, more 'historical' sources for purposes of historical inquiry. Saga authors, for instance, took great care to contextualize the disputes that form the core of these narratives. Disputants are situated in kin groups, in households, in neighborhoods, and amidst juridical institutions confirmed by other sources, and the disputes themselves are traced through time.< ... Read more

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Christianity changed the culture and society of Iceland, as it also did in other parts of Northern Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. One of the important areas of change involved the introduction of new rules on the legal requirements for marriage. Property and Virginity examines Icelandic law codes, marriage contracts, and other documents related to court proceedings. Based on extensive source material never researched before, this pioneer study explores the very gradual Christianization of marriage in Iceland. It shows that this process, which lasted for hundreds of years, had consequences for family and kinship politics, for inheritance and property transfer, and for gender relations. As canon law began to change the old ritual of betrothal, the virginal state of the woman entering marriage gained greater importance. At the same time, marriage in the Late Middle Ages continued to include many elements of its older understanding as a contract concerning property transfer between families. A new perception of gender relations also arose, whereby women became partners in the actual contract-making. The 'handshake' was now between the husband and wife, instead of between the father of the bride and her future husband. The rituals connected to the different bonds gained new meaning: marriage was no longer a financial matter alone, but also involved religious beliefs and a closer union of the spouses. ... Read more