Welcome! I am the author of Norse in the North Atlantic, which compares why the Medieval settlement of Iceland survived to this day while the Greenland settlements failed. What went right and what went wrong are the guiding questions as I searched for answers from centuries ago.
We all make history, whether we think about it that way or not. History is simply the study of people and what they have done (and sometimes what they haven’t done) before now. I have always loved how one person can affect what another person does, and so we get to see that in the study of history. Exploring history gives us a chance to go in-depth and find more causes for why things are the way they are. And history is simple, you just have to start asking the questions we all asked as a child: “Why?”
I have not been a person obsessed with the Viking Age, but I was fascinated by their impact on the rest of the world. The Viking Age began in 793 when a group of Viking attacked the Lindisfarne Monastary. The poor monks didn’t expect that at all! The Vikings were so feared, that the Holy Roman Empire started hiring groups of Vikings to deal with other Vikings (this is where Normandy originated). So when I had a chance to do my own research and write my own book, I thought the Viking Age was a great place to start! I then discovered that there was a big gap in understanding the Viking settlements of Iceland and Greenland, so I went down that path and found it absolutely fascinating.
— Abraham Lincoln