In the Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings, twelve reading scholars draw on the latest research and archaeological evidence to provide the dearest picture yet of this fabled people. Painting a fascinating portrait of the influences that the "Northmen" had on foreign lands, the contributors trace Viking excursions to the British Islands, Russia, Iceland, Greenland, and the northern tip of Newfoundland. We meet the great Viking kings, took at the day-to-day social tile of the Vikings, and learn about their almost religious reverence for boats and boat-building. But perhaps most important, the book goes a tong way towards answering the age-old question of who these people were. The contributors show that the Vikings did indeed control, the Northern Seas with the viciousness of pirates and that they pillaged Christian towns with relentless ferocity. And yet we also discover that they were shrewd traders whose dealings in fur in Russia and walrus tusks in Iceland were the envy of Europe.