For centuries, the Viking age has exerted a fascination on European art and literature through, for example, sagas, Norse mythology and runes. The enigmatic Northerners were romanticised by 18th-century poets, dresssed up by 19th-century painters, and misused to serve the propagandistic purposes of 20th-century National Socialism, which saw itself as the legitimate heir to a mythical Germanic past. This collection of essays in English and Scandinavian languages has its origins in a 1993 symposium on The Scandinavian Past in European Culture. Through case studies of different periods, the authors trace the influence of Scandinavia's heroic past on post-Renaissance France, Germany, Britain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The title of the book is taken from a famous old Norse Poem, published in English in 1703. Contributors include: Inge Adriansen, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Francois-Xavier Dillmann, Christine Fell, Pal Hougen, Bo Jansson, Jorgen Hojgaard Jorgensen, Michael Mueller-Wille, Gerd Wolfgang Weber and Sir David Wilson.

Norse Revival offers a thorough investigation of Germanic Neopaganism (Asatru) through an international and comprehensive historical perspective. It traces Germanic Neopaganism’s genesis in German ultra-nationalist and occultist movements around 1900. Based on ethnographic research of contemporary groups in Germany, Scandinavia and North America, the book examines this alternative Neopagan religion’s transformations towards respectability and mainstream thought after the 1970s. It asks which regressive and progressive elements of a National Romantic discourse on Norse myth have shaped Germanic Neopaganism. It demonstrates how these ambiguous ideas about Nordic myth permeate general discourses on race, religion, gender, sexuality, and aesthetics. Ultimately, Norse Revival raises the question whether Norse mythology can be freed from its reactionary ideological baggage.

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The Baltic Sea Region, at the crossroads between East and West, North and South, has long been marked by cultural, ethnical and ideological borders. Overcoming a history of conflict and separation, since the end of the Cold War the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea established widely valued formats of regional cooperation based on shared challenges and opportunities. In comparison with larger regions, however, the Baltic Sea Area is still a blank spot on the global map. This volume's intention is to fill this spot with colour and facts. It provides students, young researchers and other interested parties with basic knowledge of the region. The volume offers a comprehensive introduction into its history, politics, economy and culture, taking into account the various countries' commonalities and differences. By introducing concepts of regionalism and region-building, as well as analysing the structures of regional cooperation the authors and editors demonstrate the Baltic Sea Area's model function as a European macro-region.--Back cover.

Thoroughly updated and with a new foreword 'The Viking Age is shot through with the spirit of adventure. For 300 years, from just before AD800 until well into the eleventh century, the Vikings affected almost every region accessible to their ships, and left traces that are still part of life today' Far from being just 'wild, barbaric, axe-wielding pirates', the Vikings created complex social institutions, oversaw the coming of Christianity to Scandinavia and made a major impact on European history through trade, travel and far-flung consolidation. This encyclopedic study brings together the latest research on Viking art, burial customs, class divisions, jewellery, kingship, poetry and family life. The result is a rich and compelling picture of an extraordinary civilisation.

In an age of rising nationalism and expanding colonialism, the science of language has been intimately bound up with questions of immediate political concern. Taken together, the essays in this volume suggest that the emergence of language as an autonomous object of discourse was closely connected with the consolidation of new and sometimes competing forms of political community in the period following the French Revolution and the global spread of European power. This is the common thread running through the seven individual studies gathered here. By deliberately juxtaposing the European, academic configuration of modern linguistic research with the more practical, extra-European activities of missionaries, colonial officials, or East Asian literati, the authors explore the tensions between forms of linguistic knowledge generated in different geopolitical contexts, and suggest ways of thinking about the role of social science in the process of globalization.

For centuries, the Viking age has exerted a fascination on European art and literature through, for example, sagas, Norse mythology and runes. The enigmatic Northerners were romanticised by 18th-century poets, dresssed up by 19th-century painters, and misused to serve the propagandistic purposes of 20th-century National Socialism, which saw itself as the legitimate heir to a mythical Germanic past. This collection of essays in English and Scandinavian languages has its origins in a 1993 symposium on The Scandinavian Past in European Culture. Through case studies of different periods, the authors trace the influence of Scandinavia's heroic past on post-Renaissance France, Germany, Britain, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The title of the book is taken from a famous old Norse Poem, published in English in 1703. Contributors include: Inge Adriansen, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Francois-Xavier Dillmann, Christine Fell, Pal Hougen, Bo Jansson, Jorgen Hojgaard Jorgensen, Michael Mueller-Wille, Gerd Wolfgang Weber and Sir David Wilson.