The Children of Ash and Elm

Nov 7, 2024 4:35 PM

Author:Neil Price

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom Holland

The 'Viking Age' is traditionally held to begin in June 793 when Scandinavian raiders attacked the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, and to end in September 1066, when King Harald Hardrada of Norway died leading the charge against the English line at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This book, the most wide-ranging and comprehensive assessment of the current state of our knowledge, takes a refreshingly different view. It shows that the Viking expansion began generations before the Lindisfarne raid, and traces Scandinavian history back centuries further to see how these people came to be who they were.

The narrative ranges across the whole of the Viking diaspora, from Vinland on the eastern American seaboard to Constantinople and Uzbekistan, with contacts as far away as China. Based on the latest archaeology, it explores the complex origins of the Viking phenomenon and traces the seismic shifts in Scandinavian society that resulted from an economy geared to maritime war. Some of its most striking discoveries include the central role of slavery in Viking life and trade, and the previously unsuspected pirate communities and family migrations that were part of the Viking 'armies' - not least in England.

Especially, Neil Price takes us inside the Norse mind and spirit-world, and across their borders of identity and gender, to reveal startlingly different Vikings to the barbarian marauders of stereotype. He cuts through centuries of received wisdom to try to see the Vikings as they saw themselves - descendants of the first human couple, the Children of Ash and Elm. Healso reminds us of the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of the past, of how much we cannot know, alongside the discoveries that change the landscape of our understanding. This is an eye-opening and surprisingly moving book.

Reviews

Everybody thinks they know the Vikings, but Neil Price's magical book casts them in an entirely new light ... Scholarly, colourful and often remarkably funny, this is history at its very best, a richly decorated window on to a very strange world.

—— Dominic Sandbrook and Gerard De Groot , The Times Books of the Year

This history takes us deep into the lives - and deaths - of the Vikings ... What surprised me about The Children of Ash and Elm is the extent to which recent archaeological discovery is transforming our picture of the Vikings from the inside. Price, who has spent several decades in ancient cesspits and the remains of Norse workshops, is superbly qualified to understand the significance of what is being unearthed, analysed and dated, and conveys a sense of excitement about just how much is being learnt

—— David Aaronovitch , The Times

a book that offers delight after delight ... lyrical, unnerving, specific, and passionately uncertain, all at once ... Throughout this book are glorious collections of Viking facts that are technically known yet still resist our best attempts at interpretation ... Price has a talent for evoking the Vikings' physical surroundings as they might have been - a gift for recreation that's probably natural for an archaeologist accustomed to eking significance from the smallest bit of disturbed dirt ... To convey such a deep sense of scholarly indeterminacy, all while dazzling the reader with cinematic detail-this is, truly, a feat.

—— Rebecca Onion , Slate Magazine

This is a comprehensive, lyrically told and personal account of the Viking Age, the product of more than thirty years of experience as a leading archaeologist and researcher. Many books assess the "Viking achievement". The Children of Ash and Elm examines instead who the Vikings were, how they saw themselves and why they did what they did ... no other history of the Vikings is as vibrant or expands the scope of the Viking world to encompass not just landscapes, but mindscapes.

—— Jane Kershaw , Times Literary Supplement

It is full of meticulous accounts of the specifics of early medieval Scandinavian daily life ... beautifully evocative, engaging and thought-provoking ... It is impossible not to admire the breadth and range of this book's discussion of Viking material culture.

—— Eleanor Parker , History Today

Neil Price's The Children of Ash and Elm is an illuminating and insightful tour of the Viking era; his narrative is composed from his obvious expertise, and his utter passion. He loves this subject and he wants to invite the reader to share his enthusiasm ... Compelling, engaging, insightful and informative ... we couldn't hope for a more entertaining or enlightening guide - Neil Price has given us an exceptional book, and it is one to be treasured.

—— Caroline Spalding , Yorkshire Times

Price is adept at bringing this cosmopolitan and brutal world to life, interweaving many complicated strands of history with his own experience in the field along with poetic meditations on a people and time long since passed.

—— Rhian Sasseen , The Paris Review

fascinating

—— Paul Muldoon , TLS Books of the Year

a very human history of the period, one that is by turns illuminating, surprising and even moving ... much of the beauty of Price work is in its qualitative, sometimes subjective nature, even while it remains a meticulously researched, rigorous piece of scholarship.

—— Eleanor Barraclough , Literary Review

This book is the closest thing I have found to a time machine. It brilliantly clears the fog of the past from the Viking era. Extremely well written...if you are seeking an accessible, yet definitive and up-to-date book on the Vikings, this is the one you want.

—— Terje Birkedal , The Norwegian American

a thrilling read ... His clear, engaging style introduces us to the Scandinavian communities of the eighth and ninth centuries, centered around the farmstead, before catapulting us overseas and outward into an expanding world where raiding and trading quickly boosted the wealth of individuals and the ambitions of the elites. ... The stereotype of the Viking that we know from history books and popular media is here dismantled and presented anew by Mr. Price in all its wonderful, terrifying complexity and ambiguity.

—— Karin Altenberg , Wall Street Journal

The question that this dark, brilliantly written and absorbing book asks is: who were these people and where did this violence come from?...The powerful and unsettling message of this book is that they never went home. These strange, vicious people are our forebears. They never went home.

—— Jay Elwes , Spectator

as Neil Price shows in his colourful, revelatory new book, we are almost always looking at the Vikings the wrong way around. Price is one of the world's foremost experts on the Vikings and holds the chair of archaeology at Uppsala University ... He may know more about medieval Scandinavia than anyone else alive, and he aims to show us these fascinating people as they saw themselves, not as they were perceived by those on the sharp end of their robbery ... Thousands of books have been published about the Vikings - this is one of the very best.

—— Dan Jones , Sunday Times

Few books stand the test of time and remain a catalyst for continuing historiographical debate. Capitalism and Slavery on all accounts is one of these rare books.

—— Anthony Bogues, Asa Messer Professor of Humanities & Critical Theory and Inaugural Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice, Brown University

Capitalism and Slavery sparked a scholarly conversation that has yet to die down. In many ways, the debates it generated are more vibrant now than ever and promise to be a lasting touchstone for historians well into the future.

—— Guy Emerson Mount, assistant professor of African American history, Auburn University , Black Perspectives

Few works of history have exerted as powerful an influence as Capitalism and Slavery.

—— Steven Mintz, Professor of History & member of the Society of American Historians, the University of Texas at Austin

Williams's masterwork is so rich with ideas and historical insights that it still speaks to today's historiography.

—— Gerald Horne, Moores Professor of History and African American Studies, University of Houston

It is a work of conceptual brilliance, intellectually mature, bold, incisive, and immensely provocative... Capitalism and Slavery will remain a historical treasure.

—— Colin A. Palmer, Dodge Professor of History and African American studies at Princeton University

One of the most learned, most penetrating and most significant [pieces of work] that has appeared in this field of history.

—— Henry Steele Commager, Professor of History, New York University

Eric Williams's study identifies many of the sinners and the sins committed in the building of British and global capitalism ... Capitalism and Slavery makes us stare down that history and compels us to seek redress from the relevant culpable parties

—— Professor William A. Darity, Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics, Duke University

Ypi excels at describing the fall and aftermath of Albanian communism from the perspective of her childhood . . . rich and remarkable

—— Literary Review

Essential reading. Lea Ypi's gorgeously written text - part memoir, part bildungsroman - tells a very personal story of socialism and postsocialism. Poignant and timely

—— Kristen Ghodsee , Jacobin

Vital . . . an extraordinary memoir of social upheaval and historical change in 1990s Albania

—— Huck

A powerful and thought provoking memoir . . . wonderfully human, it is a story of missed opportunities, disillusionment and hope that ultimately invites readers to ask themselves what it means to be free

—— Katja Hoyer , History Today

This vivid rendering of life amid cultural collapse is nothing short of a masterpiece

—— Publishers Weekly

Remarkable and highly original . . . Both an affecting coming-of-age story and a first-hand meditation on the politics of freedom

—— Caroline Sanderson , Editor’s Choice, Bookseller

A probing personal history, poignant and moving. A young life unfolding amidst great historical change - ideology, war, loss, uncertainty. This is history brought memorably and powerfully to life

—— Tara Westover, author of Educated

Unique, insightful, and often hilarious. . . Albania on the cusp of change, chaos and civil war is the setting for the best memoir to emerge from the Balkans in decades

—— Craig Turp-Balazs , Emerging Europe

A lyrical memoir, of deep and affecting power, of the sweet smell of humanity mingled with flesh, blood and hope

—— Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

Free is astonishing. Lea Ypi has a natural gift for storytelling. It brims with life, warmth, and texture, as well as her keen intelligence. A gripping, often hilarious, poignant, psychologically acute masterpiece and the best book I've read so far this year

—— Olivia Sudjic, author of Asylum Road

Lea Ypi's teenage journey through the endtimes of Albanian communism tells a universal story: ours is an age of collapsed illusions for many generations. Written by one of Europe's foremost left-wing thinkers, this is an unmissable book for anyone engaged in the politics of resistance

—— Paul Mason, author of Postcapitalism

This extraordinary coming-of-age story is like an Albanian Educated but it is so much more than that. It beautifully brings together the personal and the political to create an unforgettable account of oppression, freedom and what it means to acquire knowledge about the world. Funny, moving but also deadly serious, this book will be read for years to come

—— David Runciman, author of How Democracy Ends

A new classic that bursts out of the global silence of Albania to tell us human truths about the politics of the past hundred years. . . It unfolds with revelation after revelation - both familial and national - as if written by a master novelist. As if it were, say, a novella by Tolstoy. That this very serious book is so much fun to read is a compliment to its graceful, witty, honest writer. A literary triumph

—— Amy Wilentz, author of Farewell, Fred Voodoo

Illuminating and subversive, Free asks us to consider what happens to our ideals when they come into contact with imperfect places and people and what can be salvaged from the wreckage of the past

—— Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

A young girl grows up in a repressive Communist state, where public certainties are happily accepted and private truths are hidden; as that world falls away, she has to make her own sense of life, based on conflicting advice, fragments of information and, above all, her own stubborn curiosity. Thought-provoking, deliciously funny, poignant, sharply observed and beautifully written, this is a childhood memoir like very few others -- a really marvellous book

—— Noel Malcolm, author of Agents of Empire

Free is one of those very rare books that shows how history shapes people's lives and their politics. Lea Ypi is such a brilliant, powerful writer that her story becomes your story

—— Ivan Krastev, author of The Light that Failed

Lea Ypi is a pathbreaking philosopher who is also becoming one of the most important public thinkers of our time. Here she draws on her unique historical experience to shed new light on the questions of freedom that matter to all of us. This extraordinary book is both personally moving and politically revolutionary. If we take its lessons to heart, it can help to set us free

—— Martin Hägglund, author of This Life

I haven't in many years read a memoir from this part of the world as warmly inviting as this one. Written by an intellectual with story-telling gifts, Free makes life on the ground in Albania vivid and immediate

—— Vivian Gornick, author of Unfinished Business

Lea Ypi has a wonderful gift for showing and not telling. In Free she demonstrates with humour, humanity and a sometimes painful honesty, how political communities without human rights will always end in cruelty. True freedom must be from both oppression and neglect

—— Shami Chakrabarti, author of On Liberty

A funny and fascinating memoir

—— White Review, Books of the Year

A rightly acclaimed account of loss of innocence in Albania from a master of subtext . . . Precise, acute, often funny and always accessible

—— The Irish Times

A remarkable story, stunningly told

—— Emma Duncan , The Times

A vivid portrayal of how it felt to live through the transition from socialism to capitalism, Ypi's book will interest readers wishing to learn more about Albania during this tumultuous historical period, but also anyone interested in questioning the taken-for-granted ideological assumptions that underpin all societies and shape quotidian experiences in often imperceptible ways

—— Hannah Proctor , Red Pepper

A classic, moving coming-of-age story. . . Ypi is a beautiful writer and a serious political thinker, and in just a couple hundred readable pages, she takes turns between being bitingly, if darkly, funny (she skewers Stalinism and the World Bank with equal deadpan) and truly profound

—— New York Times

Beguiling. . . the most probing memoir yet produced of the undefined 'transition' period after European communism. More profoundly a primer on how to live when old verities turn to dust. Ypi has written a brilliant personal history of disorientation, of what happens when the guardrails of everyday life suddenly fall away. . . Reading Free today is not so much a flashback to the Cold War as a glimpse of every society's possible pathway, a postcard from the future

—— Charles King , Washington Post

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