From a New York Times best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist, a sweeping epic of how the Vikings and their descendants have shaped history and America.

THE VIKING HEART:
How Scandinavians Conquered the World
by Arthur Herman
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, August 2021
(via Javelin)

Scandinavia has always been a world apart. For millennia Norwegians, Danes, Finns, and Swedes lived a remote and rugged existence among the fjords and peaks of the land of the midnight sun. But when they finally left their homeland in search of opportunity, these wanderers—including the most famous, the Vikings—would reshape Europe and beyond. Their ingenuity, daring, resiliency, and loyalty to family and community would propel them to the gates of Rome, the steppes of Russia, the courts of Constantinople, and the castles of England and Ireland. But nowhere would they leave a deeper mark than across the Atlantic, where the Vikings’ legacy would become the American Dream.
In THE VIKING HEART, Arthur Herman melds a compelling historical narrative with cutting-edge archaeological and DNA research to trace the epic story of this remarkable and diverse people. He shows how the Scandinavian experience has universal meaning, and how we can still be inspired by their indomitable spirit.

“Heroic battles, sea adventures, empires rising and falling, voyages of discovery, and archaeological detective work— THE VIKING HEART shines brilliantly with them all. Arthur Herman triumphs with a stirring investigation of the Scandinavian influence on our times, both past and present. You won’t look at the world the same way again.”—Neal Bascomb, New York Times best-selling author of The Winter Fortress

Arthur Herman, PhD, is the author of the New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which has sold a half-million copies worldwide, and Gandhi and Churchill, which was a 2009 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His six other books include To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, which was nominated for the UK’s prestigious Mountbatten Maritime Prize; Freedom’s Forge, named by the Economist as one of the Best Books of 2012; and Douglas MacArthur: American Warrior. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.