The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings by Lars Brownworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Sea Wolves is a good, well-written overview of the Viking Age of European History. The author has divided the book into four sections: the Raiders, concerning mostly the Viking raids on Western Europe and the British Isles; the Explorers which deals with Viking expeditions to the Mediterranean, Iceland, Greenland and North America; the Traders, which is mostly about the eastern Vikings and the founding of the Kievan Rus state; and finally the Homelands which covers the changes to the Scandinavian area itself and the formation of the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

In each of the sections, the author focuses on a few of the Vikings and the story unfolds in relation to them. This helps provide a context for each of the four sections. The weakness of the book is that by dividing it into four more or less independent stories, it is difficult to get an overall idea of what happened when.

I enjoyed the book; the author has a good writing style and it’s a pretty easy read. I definitely recommend it.