2/4: American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America by Martyn Whittock (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
2/4: American Vikings: How the Norse Sailed into the Lands and Imaginations of America by Martyn Whittock (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/American-Vikings-Sailed-Imaginations-America/dp/1639365354
The geographical reach of the Norse was extraordinary. For centuries medieval sagas, first recorded in Iceland, claimed that Vikings reached North America around the year 1000. This book explores that claim, separating fact from fiction and myth from mischief, to assess the enduring legacy of this claim in America. The search for “American Vikings” connects a vast range of different areas; from the latest archaeological evidence for their actual settlement in North America to the myth-making of nineteenth-century Scandinavian pioneers in the Midwest; and from ancient adventurers to the political ideologies in the twenty-first century. It is a journey from the high seas of a millennium ago to the swirling waters and dark undercurrents of the online world of today.
1898
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Bachelor with Martin Wittick and his new book is American Vikings, how the |
| 0:09.2 | North sailed into the lands and imaginations of America. |
| 0:12.8 | Martin is in Great Britain. |
| 0:14.7 | He's in a place called Wimborn, |
| 0:16.2 | which was raided by the Vikings sometime in the 8th century. |
| 0:20.2 | I'm in a place called New England, |
| 0:21.5 | which maybe the Vikings got to. We't know that's the course so between |
| 0:25.8 | Martin and myself right now we've got some explaining to do the man's name is Eric the |
| 0:31.6 | red 983 Greenland is the date I have. |
| 0:35.0 | A settlement of about 4,000 people is my notes from your reporting Martin. |
| 0:40.0 | This was the medieval warming period when there were vineyards in the south of England as I recall for the monasteries. |
| 0:48.0 | However, what we really care about is Eric the Red Sun son, Leaf Ericsson. |
| 0:54.0 | 1,000 a.D is the date. |
| 0:56.0 | He goes looking for what? |
| 0:58.0 | He leaves Greenland for why. |
| 1:00.0 | Where is he going? |
| 1:01.0 | So as you say, Eric the Red is one of those leading Scandinavians who leads the movement further westward from Iceland and from Norway to Greenland and from |
| 1:11.0 | Norway to Greenland and fans this at that point further west |
| 1:16.1 | comedy of Scandinavia. Never a lot of people in Greenland and that will be |
| 1:21.9 | important in the binman story because there really aren't enough people of the |
| 1:25.0 | people in Greenland and that will be important in the Vineland story because there really aren't enough people there to sustain a significant |
| 1:28.0 | further westward movement and that will be part of the reason I think for the failure of the Vineland adventure. But what happens |
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