POTUS TRUMP AIMS TO ACQUIRE GREENLAND FOR HEMISPHERE DEFENSE. 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
4.6 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
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.
1893 NANSEN IN GREENLAND
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with Martin Whittick, and his new book is American Vikings, |
| 0:04.0 | how the North sailed into the lands and imaginations of America. |
| 0:08.0 | Martin is in Great Britain. |
| 0:09.8 | He's in a place called Wimborn, which was raided by the Vikings sometime in the 8th century. |
| 0:15.4 | I'm in a place called New England, which maybe the Vikings got to. |
| 0:18.9 | We don't know. |
| 0:19.6 | That's the course. |
| 0:20.7 | So between Martin and myself right now, we've got some explaining to do. |
| 0:25.6 | The man's name is Eric the Red. |
| 0:27.8 | 983, Greenland is the date I have. |
| 0:30.7 | A settlement of about 4,000 people is my notes from your reporting, Martin. |
| 0:36.1 | This was the medieval warming period when there were |
| 0:39.4 | vineyards in the south of England, as I recall, for the monasteries. However, what we really care about |
| 0:46.1 | is Eric the Red Sun, Leif Erickson. 1,000 AD is the date. He goes looking for what? |
| 0:54.4 | He leaves Greenland for why. |
| 0:56.0 | Where is he going? |
| 0:57.6 | 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. |
| 1:08.7 | And founds this, at that point, point furthest west colony of Scandinavia. |
| 1:15.4 | Never a lot of people in Greenland and that will be important in the Vinland story because there |
| 1:20.5 | really aren't enough people there to sustain a significant further westward movement and that |
| 1:26.5 | will be part of the reason I think for the failure of the Vinland adventure. |
| 1:30.5 | But what happens around this time is recorded in two later Norse sagas. |
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