Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic (Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books)
By
Karen Oslund (Author) William Cronon (Contributor)
Hardback
Available / dispatched within 1 - 4 weeks
Quantity
Description
Iceland, Greenland, Northern Norway, and the Faroe Islands lie on the edges of Western Europe, in an area long portrayed by travelers as remote and exotic - its nature harsh, its people reclusive. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, however, this marginalized region has gradually become part of modern Europe, a transformation that is narrated in Karen Oslund's Iceland Imagined.
This cultural and environmental history sweeps across the dramatic North Atlantic landscape, exploring its unusual geography, saga narratives, language, culture, and politics, and analyzing its emergence as a distinctive and symbolic part of Europe. The earliest visions of a wild frontier, filled with dangerous and unpredictable inhabitants, eventually gave way to images of beautiful, well-managed lands, inhabited by simple but virtuous people living close to nature.
This transformation was accomplished by state-sponsored natural histories of Iceland which explained that the monsters described in medieval and Renaissance travel accounts did not really exist, and by artists who painted the Icelandic landscapes to reflect their fertile and regulated qualities. Literary scholars and linguists who came to Iceland and Greenland in the nineteenth century related the stories and the languages of the "wild North" to those of their home countries. 10 illus., 4 maps
About the Author
Karen Oslund is assistant professor of world history at Towson University in Maryland.
More Details
- Contributor: Karen Oslund
- Imprint: University of Washington Press
- ISBN13: 9780295990835
- Number of Pages: 280
- Packaged Dimensions: 152x229mm
- Packaged Weight: 522
- Format: Hardback
- Publisher: University of Washington Press
- Release Date: 2011-05-05
- Series: Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
- Binding: Hardback
- Biography: Karen Oslund is assistant professor of world history at Towson University in Maryland.
Delivery Options
Home Delivery
Store Delivery
Free Returns
We hope you are delighted with everything you buy from us. However, if you are not, we will refund or replace your order up to 30 days after purchase. Terms and exclusions apply; find out more from our Returns and Refunds Policy.