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Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic

By: Karen Oslund, William Cronon - foreword
Narrated by: Cynthia Wallace
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Summary

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 18th 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 19th century related the stories and the languages of the "wild North" to those of their home countries.

Karen Oslund is assistant professor of world history at Towson University in Maryland.

The book is published by University of Washington Press.

"The great contribution of Iceland Imagined is to help us understand the mental geographies that over the past quarter millennium have come to define the North Atlantic - and that teach us more than we might think about the rest of the world." (from the Foreword by William Cronon)

©2011 the University of Washington Press (P)2012 Redwood Audiobooks
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
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Critic reviews

"An excellent work, covering unusual ground. Not only does Iceland Imagined nicely chart important historical contours in the North Atlantic region, it offers numerous useful and original observations on themes in history, anthropology, literature, and linguistics." (Gisli Palsson, University of Iceland)
"The great contribution of Iceland Imagined is to help us understand the mental geographies that over the past quarter millennium have come to define the North Atlantic - and that teach us more than we might think about the rest of the world." (from the Foreword by William Cronon)

What listeners say about Iceland Imagined: Nature, Culture, and Storytelling in the North Atlantic

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interesting topic let down by narration

The topic of this book is incredibly interesting and added a real depth to my understanding of Iceland and the North Atlantic.
The style is generally quite dry and academic, which would be much more forgivable if the narration and editing weren't so poor. In all, after constant immersion-breaking edits, changes in tone for quotes which were physically uncomfortable to listen to, and errors in narration, I would rather have read this book.

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Too much about language, not personal enough !

Not what I wanted to find out about Iceland! Horses and sheep!!!
No personal stories. Not for the potential traveller

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A raised d’etre for Iceland

An exceptional book. Very learned, informative and thought provoking. I only wish that my brain could fully take on board its message. Maybe another reading could cement its proposals.

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