The Wolf Age: The Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons and the Battle for the North Sea Empire

Description

In the eleventh century, the rulers of the lands surrounding the North Sea are all hungry for power. To get power they need soldiers, to get soldiers they need silver, and to get silver there is no better way than war and plunder. This vicious cycle draws all the lands of the north into a brutal struggle for supremacy and survival that will shatter kingdoms and forge an empire. The Wolf Age takes the reader on a thrilling journey through the bloody shared history of England and Scandinavia, and on across early medieval Europe, from the wild Norwegian fjords to the wealthy cities of Muslim Andalusia. Warfare, plotting, backstabbing and bribery abound as Tore Skeie weaves sagas and skaldic poetry with breathless dramatization to bring the world of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons to vivid life.

Tore Skeie is one of Norway's most acclaimed historians, having written several prize-winning and bestselling works of medieval history. Tore is known for his eye for historical and human drama, while his books have been praised both for their thrilling style and the way they challenge traditional nation-oriented historical narratives. The Wolf Age was a bestseller in Norway, won the prestigious Sverre Steen award and is the first of Tore's books to be translated into English. ALISON MCCULLOUGH is a Norwegian to English literary translator based in Stavanger, Norway. Her previous translations include The Therapist by Helene Flood, and Theatre of the World: The Maps that Made History by Thomas Reinertsen Berg.

'An impressive depiction of the Viking world in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Tore Skeie deploys his scholarship with a light touch, not so much evoking this bygone age as fully inhabiting it' - Michael Jones, author of The Black Prince 'A vivid chronicle of events that shaped the early medieval North, taking a mature and humanising view of who the Vikings really were: major power players on a European stage. Tore Skeie's book has won awards in Norway, and it's easy to see why. This is exemplary popular history' - Neil Price, author of The Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings 'The first major book on the Vikings by a Scandinavian author to be published in English. Focusing on a period of about 30 years after the turn of the first millennium, Skeie constructs a pacy, dramatic account of an extraordinary period in European history... a properly absorbing page-turner... a truly excellent book' - The New European 'Gripping and compelling. This is the story of Medieval Europe and its neighbours like it has never been told before where there's no hero nor villain, just men fighting for power and glory. Skeie masterfully tells their complex stories and brings these men back to life' - Estelle Paranque 'Shows how intimately our nation's early history was bound up with that of Scandinavia' - The Bookseller