Beginning in prehistoric times and culminating with the Dacke rebellion of 1542, renowned novelist Vilhelm Moberg's two-volume popular history of the Swedish people approaches its subject from the viewpoint of the common people, documenting peasants' lives as well as those of the royal families. In this first volume Moberg examines Viking raids, the coming of Christianity, and the Folkungs royal dynasty, whose tyrannical reign lasted from 1250 to the 1360s. He vividly describes the arrival of the Black Death from a ship that docked carrying only dead passengers, and he recounts the reign of Queen Margareta who founded the Kalmar Union, comprising all of Scandinavia. In every chapter, Moberg faithfully imparts how history affected "the whole people" of Sweden.

In the second volume of his vivid history of the Swedes, Vilhelm Moberg brings his focus on the common people to bear on a period that included two dramatic revolts: the national insurrection under Engelbrekt and the last desperate attempt of the Smaland peasantry to retain their medieval liberties - a defiance bloodily crushed by King Gustav Vasa. Using a wide variety of local historical source materials, Moberg studies the ruthless monarch Vasa and his two tragic opponents: the psychopathic Christian II of Denmark and Nils Dracke, the leader of the Smalanders. Furthermore, he examines the enigmatic and wide appeal of the Swedish forest and investigates the origins of the Swedish hatred of Danes, which was implanted by propaganda through songs commissioned by Karl VIII's chancellery.Moberg's history has been widely hailed by the Swedish press as a masterpiece of popular history writing and has been an all-time best-seller in Swedish bookstores.

Archaeologist Neil Oliver ventures beyond the myths about seafaring Norsemen to reveal the true lives of their chieftains, warlords, and explorers.

The Vikings are infamous for taking no prisoners, relishing cruel retribution, and priding themselves on their bloodthirsty skills as warriors. But their prowess in battle is only a small part of their story, which stretches from their Scandinavian origins to America in the West and as far as Baghdad in the East.
 
As the Vikings did not record their own history, we have to discover it for ourselves, and their tale, as Neil Oliver reveals, is an extraordinary story of a stalwart people who came from the brink of destruction to develop awesome seafaring power that reached a quarter of the way around the globe, building an empire that lasted nearly two hundred years.
 
Drawing on discoveries that have only recently come to light, Oliver follows the Vikings’ trail to uncover what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages more than 1,000 years ago.
 
An epic tale of one of the world’s great empires, The Vikings will fascinate all history buffs interested in finding out more about these real-life adventurers.