With them they brought new tastes and technologies - books, science, clothes, paintings and machines. The seafarers raided, ruined and killed, but they also settled and coupled.

We owe this transformation to the tides and storms of the North Sea.īoats carried food and raw materials, but also new ideas and information. A thousand years later, it was the heart of global empires and the home of science, art, enlightenment and money. When the Roman Empire retreated, northern Europe was a barbarian outpost at the very edge of everything. This is a story of saints and spies, of anglers and pirates, traders and marauders - and of how their wild and daring journeys across the North Sea built the world we know.

Magnificent' Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps at its most meaningful, history involves a good deal of art and storytelling.An epic adventure: from the Vikings to the Enlightenment, from barbaric outpost to global hub, this book tells the dazzling history of northern Europe's transformation by sea. Miraculous' Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of Periodic Tales and Anatomies 'Elegant writing and extraordinary scholarship. 'A closely-researched and fascinating characterisation of the richness of life and the underestimated interconnections of the peoples all around the medieval and early modern North Sea' Chris Wickham, author of The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 Drawing on an astonishing breadth of learning and packed with human stories and revelations, this is the epic drama of how we came to be who we are. An epic adventure: from the Vikings to the Enlightenment, from barbaric outpost to global hub, this book tells the dazzling history of northern Europe's transformation by sea.

The Edge of the World by Michael Pye