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A review by psr
The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America by Gwyn Jones
4.0
Well, I've been reading this for research purposes and really enjoyed what I read. It was largely an intelligently argued review of others' work and so I had read much of what he had to say before. For all that, it was a highly cogent summary. Moral force is with Jones too - he won't let appalling behaviour off as anything less than that, no historical moral relativism here.
You get plenty for your money. After the accounts of Norse discoveries and colonies in the North Atlantic come several translations of relevant sagas and various other bits and bobs including a grizzly Inuit folk tale and moving details on the last days of one particular farmstead on Greenland.
Caveats:
The prose was what one might expect of an academic educated a century ago. It was beautifully constructed but to these relatively modern eyes, tending toward the pedantic and pompous at times. It also hasn't aged well in some of its vocabulary. There are endless references to "white men", for example, which feel a little uncomfortable in the world of today. Otherwise, Jones' book is a great introduction to the subject matter.
You get plenty for your money. After the accounts of Norse discoveries and colonies in the North Atlantic come several translations of relevant sagas and various other bits and bobs including a grizzly Inuit folk tale and moving details on the last days of one particular farmstead on Greenland.
Caveats:
The prose was what one might expect of an academic educated a century ago. It was beautifully constructed but to these relatively modern eyes, tending toward the pedantic and pompous at times. It also hasn't aged well in some of its vocabulary. There are endless references to "white men", for example, which feel a little uncomfortable in the world of today. Otherwise, Jones' book is a great introduction to the subject matter.