Customer Reviews

The Vikings: Lord of the Seas (Abrams Discoveries)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Within a day after getting this book I had finished reading it. The book's strongest point is its illustrations: paintings of what artists thought the Vikings looked like; maps; and photos of Viking artifacts, ruins and habitats.

The last portion of the book consists of excerpts from writings by or about the Norsemen.

The text suffers slightly by being a translation. It implies that Weland the Smith was a real person. I doubt that the author originally intended to give that impression.

I noticed a slight error at one point in the book. The number of doors in Valhalla magically grew from 540 to 550 in just a few pages!

The Vikings are a fascinating subject, and this book does them justice. So if you are interested in the Vikings you will enjoy it and learn much as well.

The Vikings, Lords of the Seas, By Yves Cohat

What a great little book this is. It is reminiscent of the small pocket field guides that you could buy at the check-out counters of grocery stores when I was a kid. The main difference between those and this book is that this work is for adults and much better illustrated. If you are looking for a quick, inexpensive and fairly accurate synopsis of the Norse explosion onto the world stage in the 900's, this is the book for you. The book is lavishly illustrated with some of the clearest photos and sharpest, accurate drawings I've ever run across.
This book covers nearly every aspect of Old Norse life. Despite a few minor errors I think that the book and the translation were very competently done. The last section of the book , "Documents", give the reader a quick and dirty taste of the Edda's & Sagas, Runes, everyday Norse life and more. I also liked the "Chronology" section at the end of the book. While it is not as detailed as I would have preferred, it does give the reader a continuity of events going on at the same time. All and all very enjoyable, informative and reasonably priced overview of the period.

In Frith,
Spence

"Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc"
M. Addams

I found this book to throughly enjoyable. I had no idea how much the Vikings impacted European civilization until I read this book. I knew that they came from Sweden, Norway, and Denmark but I did not realise to the extent that they traveled and settled. This book is a must for anyone seeking knowledge of the Vikings Religion, Daily Life, Colonies, and various other aspects. You will find out that these people were not just warriors but people just like you and I.

The Vikings, Lords of the Seas by Yves Cohat is an excellent pocket sized guide book to all things Viking. The book is an easy read and gives you just enough of Viking history to understand it but want to learn more. The first part of the book breaks down their origins, life at sea, the ships and even life at home. It has chapters on the explorations of Iceland, Greenland and North America along with the Danes and Norse in Britain as well as the Swedes and the founding of Russia. Of course they explain the Viking roots of the Normans which conquered Italy and England via William the Conqueror.

Every page of each chapter is vividly illustrated with color paintings, photos and diagrams to illustrate the Viking world. The last part of the book is some of the translated works by and of the Vikings that give us a glimpse of their world. This is a great book for the novice or collector of Viking literature.

But unfortunately for their contemporary neighbors the Northman weren't always just discoverers, colonists and merchants; they were also thieves, pirates and plunderers.
This is an excellent and well illustrated introduction to those influent men that influenced so much the history of Europe. With a chapter dedicated for the period before the Vikings, the reader understands the background that led to the approach to the sea and raiding.

Norway, Denmark and Sweden have a chapter each, with their areas of expansion detailed.

You will also learn how Drakkars and Knorr were built, how Vikings traded, how they colonized (and why they did it). Their daily lives, political system, the futhark rune system, the Eddas, myths and legends.

All in all a very good introduction with remarkable visual aids: photos of artifacts, medieval drawings depicting Vikings, excellent photos of the Oseberg excavations site, etc.

Additionally, the reader may read small examples of Nordic poetry, a (scary) description of a Viking burial described by a Muslim traveler, historical notes like the Paris siege and a chronology.

There are many Victorian paintings and other works of art that are quite beautiful but also quite misleading...they should be clearly identified as such with comments from the author clarifying what is correct and what was Victorian or Wagnerian fantasies (I'm aware that at the end of the book, in small lettering, the sources of the images are stated - why weren't they put below the images?).