Dawn Hadley

I bought this as I have lots on Viking life and visited York once. It starts out as commented by the author, like Doctorial and Post Doctorial thesis's, so the audience is very very limited. Skip skip skip, and I finished the first chapter and had the names of about 50 researchers (should have been in the into) and about 30 towns I'd had never heard of and couldn't find most on a map. Started the 2nd chapter and still seemed like a Post Doctorial work.

Maybe, just maybe I'll get back to it someday if I still have the book and be able to raise the rating a 1/2 point.… (meer)

The authors go into considerable detail describing the period 865-899 when the Viking Great Army made its winter quarters across East Anglia, Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria during their campaigns to raid, occupy, conquer, and ultimately settle. A very compelling case is made for these 150 years approximately (789-937) having been the making of England. Mental detectorists have been instrumental in discovering locations where the Viking Great Army overwintered in England; hack silver, gaming pieces, coins from all over England, Europe, the Middle East, weights, and weigh scales were all left behind when the VGA moved on. The Viking search for gold and silver lead to a search for land to settle and how Viking entrepreneurs became merchants and traders creating a new nation when Anglo Saxon women took VGA men as husbands to create the English nation. The threat of the VGA made the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex (under Alfred the Great) unite and create one people – the English and “to shape an English imagination.” Old English and Old Norse are mutually intelligible meaning Vikings and Anglo Saxons could likely understand each other with some practice. 20,000-35,000 Danish Viking immigrants arrived in the last 9th and early 10th centuries while isotope analysis of DNA Viking remains in England suggest Norway and its granitic bedrock were a source of settlers and allows researchers to identify and quantify migration back to the VGA. An excellent and engaging read.… (meer)