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this book had potential but lost it's way and got bogged down “Erik the Red left Norway for frontier Iceland on account of some killings and after a while he had to leave Iceland on account of some more killings he needed a fresh start after his first fresh start.
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Michael Pyes The Edge of the World: A Cultural History of the North Sea and the Transformation of Europe grabs your attention right away, but unfortunately it lets go and leaves you to wander through interesting firsthand accounts that dont always seem connected.
Pyes thesis, that the North Sea region deserves attention not just for its Viking history but for how its culture trade, business practices, recordkeeping etc, transformed the rest of Europe seems reasonable, but the argument isn't really there, Besides gaps in the argument possibly caused by the scarcity of primary documents, it felt like Pye was trying too hard to stretch the importance of specific accounts.
.stars, rounded down because as compelling as the firstpages and individual chapters, the narrative was disjointed and I was ready for the end, Full of information

It's an informational book, without the literary zest that makes some nonfiction absorbing, Nonetheless, the information chosen and the chronology draws my interest, and makes it above merely informational, Although I didn't want to finish it at first, it drew me in, Dat de middeleeuwen geen lege donkerte tussen het Romeinse Rijk en de renaissance waren, wisten we al langer, Maar nooit slaagde iemand erin het rijke middeleeuwse leven zo dichtbij te brengen als geschiedkundige Michael Pye,
In dit boek vertelt hij over de volkeren die rond de Noordzee wonen,
En hij is een uitmuntend verteller,
Niet een geschiedenis van oorlogen verdragen en data, maar van volkeren met hun gebruiken en gewoonten,
Zeker een aanrader. Als "boek van de week" in sitelink De Wereld Draait Door met een lovende kritiek waarbij Michael Pye zelfs wordt vergeleken met Bill Bryson en een aanbeveling door Geert Mak op de cover, mag je verwachten dat ik dit boek in een ruk zou uitlezen.
Niets is minder waar.

Het belang van het middeleeuwse Noordzeegebied voor de moderne wereld was enorm, stelt Michael Pye, Hij beschrijft de ontwikkelingen die zich afspeelden rond het Noordzeegebied tussen de vroege Middeleeuwen en,

Aan zijn bronnen ligt het niet, Michael Pye overspoelt ons met veel informatie en wistudatjes, dat het mij al snel duizelt, En dat is het grootste probleem: het boek is ongestructureerd en springt van de hak op de tak, In zijn pagina's lange introductie is met veel moeite een centrale vraagstelling te vinden, maar die wordt als snel bedolven onder een groot aantal verschillende thema's die als los zand aan elkaar hangen.


Een vergelijking met Bill Bryson of Geert Mak is dus niet te maken, Deze boeken lees ik in een ruk uit, Dit boek moest ik al na eental pagina's wegleggen: het was te taai en vooral te saai, I read about this book in an Economist review inand unfortunately this disjointed account of the North Sea read: the Netherlands did not meet my expectations or, in my view, coherently address the thesis implied in its title.
This is a classic example of an author missing the forest for the trees Pye gets bogged down by local anecdotes that for him may fit into a larger narrative, but for a reader not familiar with the

historical context provides nothing but a muddled and isolated, if interesting, bits of information.
Bloody boring Saints and spies, pirates and philosophers, artists and intellectuals: they all crisscrossed the grey North Sea in the socalled "dark ages," the years between the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of Europe's mastery over the oceans.
Now the critically acclaimed Michael Pye reveals the cultural transformation sparked by those men and women: the ideas, technology, science, law, and moral codes that helped create our modern world.

 
This is the magnificent lost history of a thousand years, It was on the shores of the North Sea where experimental science was born, where women first had the right to choose whom they married there was the beginning of contemporary business transactions and the advent of the printed book.
In The Edge of the World, Michael Pye draws on an astounding breadth of original source material to illuminate this fascinating region during a pivotal era in world history.
This is a delightful mess of a book, one I might not have approached were I not in Iceland, Pye practices a nominal cultural history, not a long view a la Braudel and his institutional approach is much more about people than the cold gray ocean: I can attest that the North Sea is captivating but it would take a poet to exact justice.
Not that Im dismissing the journalist author here but that he appears at pains to connect dots in lieu of a world systems application, This did inspire a curiosity in the Low Countries but other than the sections relating to Iceland I was only pleasantly distracted, There is a curious biographical sketch of the Venerable Bede which points to the possibility of a very different book and serial observation on the Viking Effect across the North Sea basin and beyond.
Pye appears to share Braudels idea that the Norse raiders were unintentional Marxists with their plunder being an agent of wealth redistribution, I was hopeful that matters would drift about before arriving at the plangent observation of Auden or Heaney but alas Pyes estimation proved closer to the EU or the US war on terror, particularly with respect to postplague policy regarding freedom of movement.
“The power of writing is as old as the runes, the early alphabet of the North Sea, ”

"October, a new moon rising huge and red: a sign of storms to comeThere was dense mist, There were violent winds tearing down leaves and branches, The sea rose far above it usual level, the tide swept in and swept in again'In the darkness of the night, Paris wrote, the sea seemed to burn as if set on fire and waves joined with waves as in battle.
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"This is the usual story: how nature makes life difficult for man, Sand drifts and smothers, water breaks into the landsudden storms like the night of the red moon take a whole harvest and leave hunger behind, "

ᚠᛟᚱᚾᛁᚾᛖᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏᛋᛁᛞᛁᛞᚾᛟᛏᛋᛚᛖᛖᛈ
For nine nights I did not sleep!
ᛋᛖᚡᛖᚾᛃᛠᚱᛋᛟᚾᛒᚱᛠᛞᚨᚾᛞᚹᚨᛏᛖᚱ
Seven years on bread and water
th century Irish penitential