Neil Price – författare

»En mästerlig historia om vikingatiden …» /Jesper Högström i DN»Ska man läsa en bok om vikingatiden ska man läsa Ask och Emblas barn.» /VETENSKAPSRADION HISTORIA»En vikingahistoria som bräcker det mesta.» /Dick Harrison i SVENSKA DAGBLADETASK OCH EMBLAS BARN utnämndes 2020 till ”History Book of the Year” i THE TIMES och THE SUNDAY TIMES. »Price är inte bara en ledande auktoritet på området utan också en fantastisk författare, som växlar mellan att vara kvick, filosofisk och eftertänksam. Han har arkeologens förmåga att tolka stora mängder forskning och data och den skicklighet som krävs för återge det hela på ett levande vis.» /THE GUARDIANDet fanns många olika sätt att vara viking på. Schablonbilden av testosteronstinna krigare från norr som med svärdets, stridsyxans och långskeppets hjälp spred skräck över hela Europa står i vägen för en mycket mer intressant och sammansatt historisk verklighet. Schablonbilden gör i själva verket vikingarna närmast osynliga.I arkeologen Neil Prices översikt "Ask och Emblas barn" möter vi i stället historiskt och psykologiskt trovärdiga vikingar. Betoningen ligger på vilka de var, varför de uppträdde som de gjorde, hur de tänkte och kände. För vikingarna var det till exempel självklart att olika väsen hela tiden grep in i en människas liv. Och trots de givna sociala rollerna och de ömse­sidiga förpliktelserna i det på många sätt hierarkiska samhället, kunde utrymmet för avvikande identiteter och livsstilar ibland vara förbluffande stort.Neil Price diskuterar också de övergripande historiska omständigheter och processer som låg bakom vikingatiden, som 500-talets förödande klimatkollaps och den krigiska och klan­baserade samhällsordning som kom att växa fram i dess spår. Men vikingasamhället var allt annat än statiskt och de första, småskaliga och på plundring inriktade vikingatågen på 700-talet blev efter hand allt större och inriktade också på handel och bosättning.”Vikingafenomenet” och ”vikingadiasporan” får en mycket allsidig belysning i boken. Neil Price vill dessutom få oss att se vikingarna som dessa såg sig själva.Neil Price är född 1965, uppvuxen i London och professor i arkeologi i Uppsala. Han är en av världens ledande forskare på vikingaområdet och har under mer än trettio år publicerat en lång rad vetenskapliga artiklar och böcker, som har översatts till 22 språk. Han har även medverkat flitigt i radio och TV, däribland i SVT:s serie ”Historien om Sverige” (2023), och var konsult på långfilmen "The Northman" (2022).

Magic, sorcery and witchcraft are among the most common themes  of the great medieval Icelandic sagas and poems, the problematic  yet vital sources that provide our primary textual evidence for  the Viking Age that they claim to describe. Yet despite the  consistency of this picture, surprisingly little archaeological  or historical research has been done to explore what this may  really have meant to the men and women of the time. This book  examines the evidence for Old Norse sorcery, looking at its  meaning and function, practice and practitioners, and the  complicated constructions of gender and sexual identity with  which these were underpinned. Combining strong elements of  eroticism and aggression, sorcery appears as a fundamental domain  of women's power, linking them with the gods, the dead and the  future. Their battle spells and combat rituals complement the  men's physical acts of fighting, in a supernatural empowerment of  the Viking way of life. What emerges is a fundamentally new image  of the world in which the Vikings understood themselves to move,  in which magic and its implications permeated every aspect of a  society permanently geared for war. In this fully-revised and  expanded second edition, Neil Price takes us with him on a tour  through the sights and sounds of this undiscovered country,  meeting its human and otherworldly inhabitants, including the Sámi with whom the Norse partly shared this mental landscape. On the way we explore Viking notions of the mind and soul, the  fluidity of the boundaries that they drew between humans and  animals, and the immense variety of their spiritual beliefs. We find magic in the Vikings' bedrooms and on their battlefields,  and we meet the sorcerers themselves through their remarkable  burials and the tools of their trade. Combining archaeology,  history and literary scholarship with extensive studies of  Germanic and circumpolar religion, this multi-award-winning book  shows us the Vikings as we have never seen them before.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'As brilliant a history of the Vikings as one could possibly hope to read' Tom HollandThe '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.

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians.In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers, and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process, they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation-states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society, economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.

Who do we think of when we think about the Vikings? Most of us are familiar with the seafaring marauders who raided, traded and settled the coasts of Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries. In fact, those warriors made up only a small minority among a diverse people who had many roles and callings.In this eye-opening and often moving book, Neil Price takes us on a journey across the Viking world, revealing the complex, varied and richly textured lives of those who inhabited it through the intimate context of their burials. Traversing a vast Scandinavian diaspora that stretched from the eastern Steppe all the way to Newfoundland, we meet townsfolk and farmers, the free and the enslaved, immigrants and diplomats, followers of many gods and the worshippers of one, sea-kings, shamans, sorceresses, and – of course – the ferocious pirates who gave the víkingar their name.Unexpected encounters along the way challenge received wisdom about Norse culture, spiritual practices and politics, showing how they transformed their times and in doing so were changed themselves. How did a woman of Persian ancestry come to be interred in the richest Viking grave ever found? What do an arctic hunter and a Sámi nomad tell us about a fast-changing society’s notions of identity and belonging? How did these individuals see themselves, and what were their attitudes towards the elderly, infirm and children in their midst?Drawing on the latest archaeological research and scientific analysis, The Sea-King and the Sorceress brings us closer to understanding the lives and times of the Vikings. The era that bears their name will never seem so simple again.

This volume draws together the ground-breaking work of researchers and archaeological practitioners, working in multiple countries, to explore and understand the material and cultural impacts of the Pacific War.The combat taking place in the Pacific region during the years 1941–45 was characterized by a brutality and violence unmatched in any other theatre of the Second World War. Described by indigenous Micronesians as a ‘typhoon,’ the war was an unstoppable force that rolled across the islanders’ homes, leaving only a trail of destruction in its wake, with physical, psychological, and cultural impacts that continue to resonate today. This difficult period is examined in a variety of ways through chapters that include targeted studies of archaeological sites, wider surveys of battlefield landscapes, and the ways in which we commemorate the experiences and legacies of both combatants and civilian populations. The translation of important research by Okinawan, Japanese, and Russian archaeologists brings into focus regions that have previously been neglected in Anglophone literature, and enriches this comprehensive exploration of the archaeology of the Pacific War.This book will be of interest to archaeological practitioners, students, and members of the general public working in conflict studies or with an interest in the material culture, history, and legacies of the Pacific War.

This volume draws together the ground-breaking work of researchers and archaeological practitioners, working in multiple countries, to explore and understand the material and cultural impacts of the Pacific War.The combat taking place in the Pacific region during the years 1941–45 was characterized by a brutality and violence unmatched in any other theatre of the Second World War. Described by indigenous Micronesians as a ‘typhoon,’ the war was an unstoppable force that rolled across the islanders’ homes, leaving only a trail of destruction in its wake, with physical, psychological, and cultural impacts that continue to resonate today. This difficult period is examined in a variety of ways through chapters that include targeted studies of archaeological sites, wider surveys of battlefield landscapes, and the ways in which we commemorate the experiences and legacies of both combatants and civilian populations. The translation of important research by Okinawan, Japanese, and Russian archaeologists brings into focus regions that have previously been neglected in Anglophone literature, and enriches this comprehensive exploration of the archaeology of the Pacific War.This book will be of interest to archaeological practitioners, students, and members of the general public working in conflict studies or with an interest in the material culture, history, and legacies of the Pacific War.

In this timely collection, Neil Price provides a general introduction to the archaeology of shamanism by bringing together recent archaeological thought on the subject. Blending theoretical discussion with detailed case studies, the issues addressed include shamanic material culture, responses to dying and the dead, shamanic soundscapes, the use of ritual architecture and shamanism in the context of other belief systems such as totemism. Following an intial orientation reviewing shamanism as an anthropological construct, the volume focuses on the Northern hemisphere with case studies from Greenland to Nepal, Siberia to Kazakhstan. The papers span a chronological range from Upper Palaeolithic to the present and explore such cross-cutting themes as gender and the body, identity, landscape, architecture, as well as shamanic interpretations of rock art and shamanism in the heritage and cultural identity of indigenous peoples. The volume also addresses the interpretation of shamanic beliefs in terms of cognitive neuroscience and the modern public perception of prehistoric shamanism.

In this timely collection, Neil Price provides a general introduction to the archaeology of shamanism by bringing together recent archaeological thought on the subject. Blending theoretical discussion with detailed case studies, the issues addressed include shamanic material culture, responses to dying and the dead, shamanic soundscapes, the use of ritual architecture and shamanism in the context of other belief systems such as totemism. Following an intial orientation reviewing shamanism as an anthropological construct, the volume focuses on the Northern hemisphere with case studies from Greenland to Nepal, Siberia to Kazakhstan. The papers span a chronological range from Upper Palaeolithic to the present and explore such cross-cutting themes as gender and the body, identity, landscape, architecture, as well as shamanic interpretations of rock art and shamanism in the heritage and cultural identity of indigenous peoples. The volume also addresses the interpretation of shamanic beliefs in terms of cognitive neuroscience and the modern public perception of prehistoric shamanism.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field.Bringing together today’s leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Stefan Brink and Neil Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted. Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest, this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, and links with medieval and Christian Europe.This original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

The Vikings provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the complex world of the early medieval Scandinavians.In the space of less than 300 years, from the mid-eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries CE, people from what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark left their homelands in unprecedented numbers to travel across the Eurasian world. Over the last half-century, archaeology and its related disciplines have radically altered our understanding of this period. The Vikings explores why we now perceive them as a cosmopolitan mix of traders and warriors, craftsworkers and poets, explorers, and settlers. It details how, over the course of the Viking Age, their small-scale rural, tribal societies gradually became urbanised monarchies firmly emplaced on the stage of literate, Christian Europe. In the process, they transformed the cultures of the North, created the modern Nordic nation-states, and left a far-flung diaspora with legacies that still resonate today. Written by leading experts in the period and exploring the society, economy, identity and world-views of the early medieval Scandinavian peoples, and their unique religious beliefs that are still of enduring interest a millennium later, this book presents students with an unrivalled guide through this widely studied and fascinating subject, revealing the fundamental impacts of the Vikings in shaping the later course of European history.

Filling a gap in the literature for an academically oriented volume on the Viking period, this unique book is a one-stop authoritative introduction to all the latest research in the field.Bringing together today’s leading scholars, both established seniors and younger, cutting-edge academics, Stefan Brink and Neil Price have constructed the first single work to gather innovative research from a spectrum of disciplines (including archaeology, history, philology, comparative religion, numismatics and cultural geography) to create the most comprehensive Viking Age book of its kind ever attempted. Consisting of longer articles providing overviews of important themes, supported by shorter papers focusing on material of particular interest, this comprehensive volume covers such wide-ranging topics as social institutions, spatial issues, the Viking Age economy, warfare, beliefs, language, voyages, and links with medieval and Christian Europe.This original work, specifically oriented towards a university audience and the educated public, will have a self-evident place as an undergraduate course book and will be a standard work of reference for all those in the field.

‘Dickens’s Favourite Blacking Factory’ is the extraordinary story of Charles Day, a self-made nineteenth-century boot-blacking entrepreneur, the dispute over whose Will led Charles Dickens to create the apparently endless case of ‘Jarndyce and Jarndyce’ in his novel ‘Bleak House’. In this remarkable and highly imaginative telling of a true story, after a decades-long search for information on his ancestor, the author makes a fluke discovery, revealing a sweeping story of Regency and early-Victorian London. An actual 170,000-word document uncovered in the National Archives exposes the tragic last two months of the life of Charles Day. This includes his deteriorating mental faculties resulting from tertiary syphilis, his remarkable philanthropy, blackmail by a dodgy solicitor, the inertia of the contemporary legal system and the shame of illegitimacy, particularly in the wealthy classes. Perhaps the plot of Dickens’s ‘Bleak House’ even reflects aspects of Charles Day’s own life?