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Honestly I'm not entirely sure what to say about this book because if I was 12 years old I would have loved it. Seriously I'd have eaten it up and looked for more. But Nelson isn't marketing this as a juvenile or even a young adult book and as such I find myself hard pressed to give it more than a middling rating.
It's a book which presupposes that the reader knows virtually nothing, and while I'm the first to bemoan the state of education in this country I find it hard to believe that most people get out of high school without knowing who the Vikings were. Yet Merkle's very first sidebar explains them to the reader. Seriously, he seems to think it necessary to tell his readers that Vikings were "Scandinavian men who traveled on trading and raiding expeditions..." These sidebars, which are fairly annoying -- whatever happened to footnotes? -- litter the beginning of the book, but calm down as the story progresses. They mostly add very little to the narrative and can easily be skipped unless you really don't know anything about history, though I have to confess that some of them are mildly interesting. The one about berserkers was fascinating even if it was intrusive.
For the rest, I have to admit that I didn't find the narrative particularly enthralling. In addition to the sidebars, there are odd asides about things like Viking long boats and King Alfred's piles. I'm not kidding about this last, and frankly I could've gone my whole life not having to read about them. Even some of the sidebars seem weirder than others. The one explaining that the town of Nottingham used to be known as "Snotengaham" after a Chieftain named "Snot." was sort of funny, albeit in the manner of, well, a 12 year old.
While I recognize that all historians have an agenda, or take sides... whatever, one of the less appealing lenses, for me at least, is a blatantly religious one. And Merkle's lens is very, very Christian. I'll let each reader judge for him or herself how reliable that's likely to be in the retelling of historical fact. I tend to find it somewhat suspect when it's this obvious. And in light of all the other issues noted above, it just adds to my feeling that I can't really recommend this as a good popular history for adults. If Nelson was going to market it for juveniles or young adults I'd be more enthusiastic, but for adults to wade through a narrative that seems oddly scattered, parenthetical and burdened with heavy religious overtones? I honestly don't think it has enough to offer to justify that time and effort.
It's a book which presupposes that the reader knows virtually nothing, and while I'm the first to bemoan the state of education in this country I find it hard to believe that most people get out of high school without knowing who the Vikings were. Yet Merkle's very first sidebar explains them to the reader. Seriously, he seems to think it necessary to tell his readers that Vikings were "Scandinavian men who traveled on trading and raiding expeditions..." These sidebars, which are fairly annoying -- whatever happened to footnotes? -- litter the beginning of the book, but calm down as the story progresses. They mostly add very little to the narrative and can easily be skipped unless you really don't know anything about history, though I have to confess that some of them are mildly interesting. The one about berserkers was fascinating even if it was intrusive.
For the rest, I have to admit that I didn't find the narrative particularly enthralling. In addition to the sidebars, there are odd asides about things like Viking long boats and King Alfred's piles. I'm not kidding about this last, and frankly I could've gone my whole life not having to read about them. Even some of the sidebars seem weirder than others. The one explaining that the town of Nottingham used to be known as "Snotengaham" after a Chieftain named "Snot." was sort of funny, albeit in the manner of, well, a 12 year old.
While I recognize that all historians have an agenda, or take sides... whatever, one of the less appealing lenses, for me at least, is a blatantly religious one. And Merkle's lens is very, very Christian. I'll let each reader judge for him or herself how reliable that's likely to be in the retelling of historical fact. I tend to find it somewhat suspect when it's this obvious. And in light of all the other issues noted above, it just adds to my feeling that I can't really recommend this as a good popular history for adults. If Nelson was going to market it for juveniles or young adults I'd be more enthusiastic, but for adults to wade through a narrative that seems oddly scattered, parenthetical and burdened with heavy religious overtones? I honestly don't think it has enough to offer to justify that time and effort.
