The Hammer and the Cross - Robert Ferguson [DerHammer].epub

The Hammer and The Cross: A New History of the Vikings
By Robert Ferguson

For those living outside Scandinavia, the Viking Age effectively began in 793 with an attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne, a characteristically violent harbinger of what was in store for Britain and much of Europe from the Vikings for the next 300 years, until the final destruction of the heathen temple to the Norse gods at Uppsala around 1090.

Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls 'the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history'. His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia - the eddas, the poetry of the skalds and the sagas - is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries and the evidence of picture-stones, runes, ships and objects scattered all over northern Europe, to make the most convincing modern portrait of the Viking Age in any language. The Hammer and the Cross ranges from Scandinavia itself to Kievan Rus and Byzantium in the east, to Iceland, Greenland and the north American settlements in the west. Beyond its geographical boundaries the book takes us on a journey to a misty region inhabited by Hallfred the Troublesome Poet, Harald Bluetooth, Ragnar Hairy-Breeches, Ivar the Boneless and Eyvind the Plagiarist, in which literature, history and myth dissolve into one another.

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Information:
Format: ePub (2.0)
File size: 1 967 kB
Print Length: 464 pages (paperback)
Language: English
ASIN: B002VISNKS
ISBN-10: 0141017759 (printed edition)
ISBN-13: 978-0141017754 (printed edition)
Published: 5 Nov 2009 (ePub edition)

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Comment:
Okay, this one is really, really good. It deals - among other a lot of things - with the viking reaction to the Christian oppressors of northern Europe, which is otherwise explained by really nonsense theories; everything to cover up the truth. Well worth reading, in many ways besides this. Robert Ferguson is a really high standard and entertaining historian and writer.

However, I couldn't shrink this one much in file size, original size 2 303 kB, mine is 1 967 kB. The publisher had compressed the shit out of all images, so instead I spent some time "de-destructing" and improving the images, which look far better now. Anyway, the book renders beautifully, and is easily read on any handheld device.

Share and seed until Ragnarök!