Thank you Netgalley for letting me read and review this book. I always love reading and learning more about Vikings. Some of my ancestors were Vikings. If you enjoy nonfiction and vikings you should give this a read. The writing style is nice and interesting.

I went into this book not knowing much about Vikings but was greatly surprised by just how much research the authors did.
This was highly informative and very detailed my only critique was that I had to keep going back to the beginning to look at the maps and list of people.

Many thanks to Netgalley for this ARC all views are my own.

Vikings history is not well known at all. The Vikings traveled the.world but we tend to forget about them. I dived into this book and eat it up. It kept me going to the point I didn’t want to put it down and need to knock more about them. Loved every piece of this book.

Great non-fiction title, with interesting information!

I even found this useful for my university essay on Vikings, even though I'd picked it just to have some context to the topic, and it's well written. Nicely structured, if a little heavy, but many of the best non-fiction are densely packed.

8/10, definitely recommend this book, especially to those with an interest in true history and mythology

Vikings have often been misportrayed in history. Unfortunately, they were given a bad rap - instead of focusing on who they really were.

This book takes a great look at the real history of the Vikings, and who they were and how they lived. I really enjoyed reading this one. It is full of great facts and information, giving the reader the ins and outs, leaving room for more research in the future.

Check it out!

Interesting and relevant . I watch most all Viking history programs on the TV. I was curious as to how much of what I am seeing is true or just kind of true. Alfter reading this book I have a better idea about Viking life and religion. Well writen and down to earth style.

NetGalley/Publisher review:

Slightly heavy going even though I am an easy reader, meaning I plough through most things. A lot of the information has already been published but I enjoyed it and if you've little knowledge of the subject then it is worth reading.

This book by the Whittocks was interesting. It talked about how the Vikings forced the conversion of people from Paganism to Christianity and the time period that it happened.
I would recommend this book to people interested in the vikings or pagan conversion.

I started reading this book in an e-book format and did like what I read so far. However, because of the type of reader I am (I like to constantly refer to maps, lists of characters, timelines, glossary, etc) I found myself constantly scrolling back to the beginning, an e-book wasn't working for me. So, I bought a physical copy of this book and will finish reading it that way.

After finding Vikings (the TV show) a few years back, my interest in the culture and their way of life has only grown. Ancient people are quite interesting to me. This book was a good look into Vikings and the ways things changed as Christianity grew.

Our knowledge of the Vikings has expanded excitingly in recent years. Once thought of as pillaging, raping pagans they are now recognised as much more sophisticated and complex. As the book title suggests their era which extended over hundreds of years encompasses Christianity, commerce and political negotiations. This well researched book adds much to the field, not necessarily fresh primary material but interweaving new discoveries and approaches to the topic. Well worth consulting and using as a core course book.

Interesting book on the Vikings and their history. There is a lot of information to take in so its taken a while to read, but I've certainly learnt that the way the Vikings have been portrayed in the past isn't wholly accurate and that even the term Viking is a modern invention rather than a word used when they invaded our shores!

Plenty of names and events that I recognise from having watched the TV drama series in the History Channel. My OH likes books on this subject so its certainly something I would consider buying him in the future.

I received this book from netgalley in return for a honest review.

While not a light non-fiction read it was certainly very interesting and captivating. I read this over the past month while travelling around Iceland and over to Norway and then on to all the other Scandinavian countries around the Baltic Sea. What a journey that was and this book enable me to develop a more in-depth understanding and appreciation of the history and culture of these areas and its people.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher Lion Hudson Ltd for a copy to read and review.

*Many thanks to the Authors. Lion Hudson Tld and Netgalley for providing me with arc in exchange for my honest review.*
The Authors wrote an interesting book based on thorough research on the Vikings. Knowing almost nothing about them, I found this non-fiction stimulating and most informative. The only complaint I could make is that it was not easy to follow for me as there are facts given in a journalistic language which often does not allow for a narration that makes a read more accessible to an average reader like myself who has no factual background to support reading.

The forgotten story of the ‘Christian Vikings’.

The popular image of the Vikings is that of tall red-headed warriors with longships, worshiping Odin & Thor and ransacking every kingdom in their path. But the violent Vikings of the 8th century became the pious Christians of the 11th century. So how did this radical transformation happen, and why? This book is a fascinating account of Vikings throughout history as well as their travels around the world.

The Vikings: From Odin to Christ focuses on the brief period of history from the 8th century to 11th century detailing how Vikings were converted to Christianity from their Pagan religion. The authors detail how and where these people settled, the politics involved, and what archaeological evidence we have for their conversions.

This book focuses specifically on the religious conversion of the Vikings, i.e. how and why this conversion happened in various regions, from Scandinavia to the Western Isles of Scotland and even Russia. The author makes good use of archeological evidence, artifacts, and some contemporary written sources to support the narrative.

If you want to read more about the early Vikings and Odin & Thor, this book is not for you. Also if you are a casual reader, you may sometimes find the narrative difficult to follow as the book lists out dry facts instead of an engaging narrative that would help the reader follow along. The chapters are arranged country wise, which helps to know the specific history of the region. The level of detail and research in this book is top notch.

Overall, this was an interesting and worthwhile book that may help dispel some of the myths about the Vikings. The author tries to paint a realistic picture of the Vikings without trying to paint them as heroes or villains. If you are interested in the religious history of the Vikings, this book may interest you. Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Many thanks to the publishers Lion Books, the authors Martyn Whittock and Hannah Whittock and NetGalley for the ARC.

Interesting History book on how the Vikings became Christian. Its not something that's usually written about, as there seems to be a strong prejudice against associating Christianity with anything to do with the Vikings.
This is inaccurate and frankly bordering on xenophobic. There were, the author demonstrates, a number of prominent figures in Scandinavian history who were proudly Christian, and were still 'Vikings'. Warriors and adventurers including King Olaf of Norway, King Cnut, and Gudrid 'the Far Traveler' who was one of a group of Vikings to traveled to the New world.

This book explores how and why this conversion happened in various regions, from Scandinavia to the Western Isles of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, which were also important areas of Norse settlement.
The author makes good use of archeological evidence, artifacts, and some contemporary written sources to support the narrative.

One aspect that I found interesting was the reasons why Viking women might have converted to Christianity. Its recently been claimed that pagan Viking women had it better than anyone else in Europe at this time: I for one find this claim hard to believe. As Mr Whittock demonstrates, not all women in Scandinavia were freeborn shield maidens.
Many were slaves: yes the Vikings were major slave-traders. Some were taken from their homelands as wives or companions to settlers of new lands. Many came from Ireland and may already have been Christian, providing the impetus for later conversion.

There was also a darker side: with evidence that the Vikings practiced infanticide though exposure of unwanted babies, and that this may have been more common with female children. Christianity expressly forbade such practices, and as such gave women more hope for survival in the present life, and a better afterlife than the one promised in Norse Paganism (nobody seems to have been sure whether women could enter the legendary Valhalla).

Overall, this was an interesting and worthwhile book that may help dispel some of the myths about the Vikings. The author does not pull any punches, or engage in any revisionist exoneration of the Vikings by trying to convince us that they were really not that bad. Nor are they painted as total villains.
This is not a dry and boring history book though: the chapters are pretty short and concise, following a roughly chronological timeline, and it makes for an easy read.

Thanks to Lion Hudson approving me for this title on Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own.

If you are familiar with the image of Vikings as portrayed in modern movies and culture, this book will paint a completely different and more historically accurate picture. It traces the progression of Christianity through the geographical areas that we consider to be Viking territory. Viking, as the authors point out, is a term that more accurately describes an action than a people, even though we tend to see it as the latter these days.

The book is nicely divided into chapters that show how the Christian transformation of Viking territory was not one simple movement. It was particular to each region, based a lot on the area’s history and the social context. The authors present both analysis and excerpts from old sagas. I appreciated that they included a very detailed list of names, definitions, and notes that I would recommend you bookmark so you can turn back to it as you follow the complex histories of these lands. I also appreciated that the authors took a neutral stance on paganism versus Christianity. The book is a nonprejudiced, non-demonizing, balanced look at how the societies changed with the coming of Christianity.

If you have any interest whatsoever in Viking history, you will find this book about their Christian age to be a fascinating and in-depth one.

I love this if only for the references at the front, SUCH a good resource and I enjoyed reading about the history that's not always available in quick searches online.

You would think that a book on history and Christianity would appeal to me. Add in the fact that I used to live near York, formerly known by the Viking name of Jorvik, and this should be a book I find fascinating. My introduction to the Vikings was through the Jorvik Viking Museum in York, a museum that seemed impressive 30 years ago and even more so when I last visited in 2014. Despite those visits, I wasn’t sure how much I knew about the Vikings before starting this book. It turns out I knew quite a bit but had forgotten it over the years!

The Vikings: From Odin to Christ spans over 500 years of global history. It’s a lot to cover in one book. It starts with a timeline, the names of key people, and a list of terms including Gaelic and Scandinavian words. This is a useful document, particularly when it comes to names. There is more than one person named Olaf in Viking history, and more than one Harald and Sigurd as well. Chapters are divided by region. For example, one chapter is The Christian Vikings of Denmark, while another is Christian Vikings of the North Atlantic. The father and daughter writing duo also try to keep things in chronological order, so the final chapters circle back around to the British Isles and the decline of Viking power and culture.

This was a difficult book to get through. It took me well over a week. Because of the amount to cram in, it isn’t as detailed as I’d hoped. There are no illustrations or photographs, a loss when it comes to the discussion of Viking art and runes. I ended up searching elsewhere for visuals and consequently was often sidetracked. I went on similar searches for information about a couple of places mentioned, including Uppsala in Sweden and Kirkwall in the Orkneys. Because the book focuses on those Norsemen who traveled, it looks only slightly at the inhabitants of the places they visited and conquered. We don’t get much of an idea of how life changed for the ordinary person. I feel each chapter could’ve been a complete book in itself.

It’s also a fairly dry read, reminding me of a textbook. Despite that, there were some interesting stories of individuals such as Cnut, who gets a chapter to himself, and repeat appearances by men such as Harald Finehair and Olaf Tryggvason. I would’ve loved to see in-depth chapters focusing solely on the history of men such as these. I was also reminded that William of Normandy, the Conqueror, was descended from Vikings.

Overall, with the chapters and index, this is more of a reference book rather than one to read straight through. It’s good for showing how some Vikings converted to Christianity due to faith while others did it as a matter of practicality. It’s good to counter the image of pagan warriors in popular media. It’s a good introduction to various Viking personalities. Just don’t go expecting great visuals because you won’t find them.

Disclaimer: I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. I was not required to write a review, and the words above are my own.

This book was so interesting! It has been a while since I've read any nonfiction and I really enjoyed learning things the movies and other formats have left out.
While the Vikings did a lot of nasty things, they also eventually found Christ - and this book really explores that all the way down to language format and the link between what is publicly "known" about their existence.
It is so intricate and even provides a timeline and name database so the reader doesn't get lost as can keep up with who is being referenced. I really appreciated that info, as I referenced it quite a bit throughout the reading!