Atlas showing the range of Viking developments and exploration.

About AD 800, mysterious long-ships made their first appearance along the North Sea coast of Britain. From Shetland to the Thames, these raiding ships appeared out of the sea mists, carrying warriors so fierce that no one could stand against them. By the middle of the 9th century, these raiders began to establish settlements, and the raids continued, from Norse bases in Orkney, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. The raiders eventually became rulers, creating Scandinavian colonies in Normandy, England, and Ireland. Around the same time, a few Viking explorers ventured across the Atlantic to America, while others sailed south to Africa, into the Mediterranean, and through the European river systems deep into Russia. This book chronicles their achievements, drawing on archaeological evidence as well as the rich source of Norse Sagas and mythology.

The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Civilizations explores the world's earliest cultures, from the farming settlements of Mesopotamia to the Americas and Polynesia, via the birth of Greek city states and the foundation of Rome. It examines the development of civilizations in the Near East - Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian - as well as those in Europe - the Minoans, Etruscans and Celts. Across the continents of Africa, Asia and America, it covers such subjects as Egypt from its pre-dynastic roots to the age of the Pharaohs, China during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the great cities of the Incas and Aztecs. Vivid descriptions of civilizations are complemented by discussion of such key topics as colonization, agriculture and technology, and the rise of empires and city states. Richly illustrated with timelines, photographs, artwork re-creations and full-colour maps, this is an illuminating and multi-faceted one-volume introduction to early peoples and the worlds they created. - Back cover.

This atlas charts the rise and fall of Hitler's Nazi state, from the first mass meeting to the NSDAP in Munich in 1920, through the relentless territorial aggression and anti-Jewish atrocities of World War II, to the execution of war criminals at Nuremberg in 1946. An informative, one-volume handbook that documants the rise and fall of one of the most terrifying and destructive regimes in world history.

The breakup of the Soviet Union has been accompanied by a new surge of interest in this most fascinating and contradictory of nations. This atlas covers Russia's history from the coming of the Slavic peoples and the invasion of the Swedish Rus and the Mongols through the territorial expansion of Catherine the Great to the rise of communism, the Cold War era, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Full color.

Viking Empires, first published in 2005, is a definitive global history of the Viking World.

Historisk atlas dækkende Canada, USA og Mexico