The Vikings maintain their grip on our imagination, but their image is too often distorted by medieval and modern myth. It is true that they pillaged, looted, and enslaved. But they also settled peacefully and developed a vast trading network. They traveled far from their homelands in swift and sturdy ships, not only to raid, but also to explore. Despite their fearsome reputation, the Vikings didn't wear horned helmets, and even the infamous berserkers...

Presents a history of the Nordic warriors and explorers who plundered and traded their way across Europe, and discusses how their conquests helped spread and enhance accomplishments in the arts, culture, and government.

From a New York Times best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist, a sweeping epic of how the Vikings and their descendants have shaped history and America--

Draws on recent archaeological discoveries to trace the mythical journey of Gudrid, a Viking women who was thought to have sailed off the edge of the known world more than five hundred years before Christopher Columbus made his historic journey, and explores what Viking society was like in her time and the reasons for its collapse.