Description
Book SynopsisIt is now generally accepted the Leif Eriksson sailed from Greenland across the Davis Strait and made landfalls on the North American continent almost a thousand years ago, but what happened in this vast area during the next five hundred years has long been a source of disagreement among scholars. Using new archeological, scientific, and documentary information (much of it in Scandinavian languages that are a bar to most Western historians), this book confronts many of the unanswered questions about early exploration and colonization along the shores of the Davis Strait.
The author brings together two distinct but tangential fields of inquiry: the history of medieval Greenland and its connections with the Norse discovery of North America, and fifteenth-century British maritime history and pre-colonial voyages to North America, including that of John Cabot. In order to evaluate the situation in Norse Greenland at the end of the fifteenth century (when documented English and Por
Trade Review
"This is a fascinating book, not only for those engaged in Atlantic studies or early American history. The clear and precise text, the skillful management of complex themes, and above all the sympathetic approach to human endeavors, coupled with a skeptical view of earlier theories and an open mind to new ideas, make it as easy to read as a novel."—The Times Higher Education Supplement
"Of major importance, this book fills a serious gap in scholarly studies of European expansion. It brings new understandings to the relationships between Norse discoveries and the great voyages of Renaissance discovery in the North Atlantic. Furthermore, it is fascinating reading, written in a lively and very readable style. It should interest the general public and amateur historians as well as scholars."—Dr. Helen Walls, British Map Library, British Museum
"For many aspiring writers, this book might well be a model of how to put across a complex theme in an easy-to-read manner. It is sure to provide much new information even to those who specialize in the North Atlantic, and provide topics for discussion, disagreement, and thought, as any well-researched book should do."—Journal of the International Map Collector's Society
Table of Contents
Illustrations 1. Greenland and Vinland: North Atlantic exploration five hundred years before the Cabot voyages 2. Social and economic conditions in Norse Greenland before 1350 3. Church and trade in Norse Greenland 4. Ivar Bardarson's Greenland 5. The western settlement comes to an end 6. Rumors of trouble in the Eastern settlement 7. England and the Norwegian colonies 1400-1450 8. Sailing out of the Middle Ages, 1450-1500.
