The Conversion of Scandinavia

På Yale University Press har Anders Winroth just utkommit med paperback-versionen av boken The Conversion of Scandinavia. Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe. Svenske Anders Winroth är professor i historia vid Yale University med inriktning mot bl.a. europeisk och skandinavisk medletids- och rättshistoria.

Förlaget presenterar boken på följande sätt:

In this book a MacArthur Award-winning scholar argues for a radically new interpretation of the conversion of Scandinavia from paganism to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Overturning the received narrative of Europe’s military and religious conquest and colonization of the region, Anders Winroth contends that rather than acting as passive recipients, Scandinavians converted to Christianity because it was in individual chieftains’ political, economic, and cultural interests to do so.

Through a painstaking analysis and historical reconstruction of both archeological and literary sources, and drawing on scholarly work that has been unavailable in English, Winroth opens up new avenues for studying European ascendency and the expansion of Christianity in the medieval period.

Se förlagets presentation här.