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Were the Vikings, as contemporary description had it, a 'valiant, wrathful, foreign, purely pagan people' who swept in from the sea to plunder and slaughter? 'War-wolves keen in hungry quest', according to later tradition, who lived and died by the sea and the sword? Or were they unusually successful merchants, extortionists, and pioneer explorers? This book, by leading international scholars, considers the latest research and presents a compelling picture of the Vikings and their age. Excavations as far apart as Dublin and Newfoundland, York and Kiev, provide fascinating archaeological evidence, expertly interpreted in this extensively illustrated book. Its chapters cover the different geographical areas of the Viking world, and trace the Viking story from the first 'hit-and-run' raids on isolated coastal communities towards the end of the eighth century to the establishment of permanent settlements and their interaction with local culture. The Viking heritage and the different uses it was put to in subsequent centuries by, amongst others, the Romantic movement in literature, Scandinavian immigrants to the American Mid-west, and the Nazis is further explored in a fascinating chapter. From sagas to shipbuilding technology, from funeral rituals to fur-trading, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings offers a comprehensive and absorbing overview of Viking activity and the Viking legacy.