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 .p364 [[ | ]]
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 .p365 [[ | ]]		  .p364 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelignite | gelignite ]] and [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistite | ballistite ]] leading to [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordite | cordite ]] smokeless gunpowder
 .p364 Nobel brothers Ludvig and Robert purchase Azerbaijan oil refinery in 1876, growing a global petroleum enterprise
 .p365 [[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludvig_Nobel | Ludvig ]] launches Zoroaster, first oil tanker in 1878
 .p365 55yo Alfred excoriated in premature 1888 obituary, announces Nobel Prizes in 1895

The Viking Heart

How Scandinavians conquered the world

2021 . Arthur Herman . 29 + 484 pages

948.022 HER . Murray Scholls Library

  • MAP: Viking voyages, originating in
    • southwest coastal Norway to Iceland, England, Ireland, France
    • Denmark to Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy
    • East coast Sweden to south Finland, Volga to Caspian Sea, Dnieper to Kiev, Black Sea, Constantinople

  • pxi Preface

  • pxv Norsemen genetic melting pot widespread in Europe

  • pxv Normans descendants of Norsemen, brought science and instruments to northern and western Europe

  • pxvii A Nation of Immigrants John F. Kennedy 1958 book @PSU

  • p030 Ch02 - Being Vikings

  • p033 Vikings genetically diverse, some Mediterranean and Middle East ancestry
  • p034 Vikings polygamous

  • p034 littoral

  • p034 Viking grave goods: bronze Buddha from Kashmir

  • p035 clinker-built boats, overlapping planks, nail points flattened tight with rove plate

  • p035 broad beam widest point of hull

  • p036 Vikings invented keel in 7th century

  • p036 18 inch draft fully loaded for inland waterways

  • p037 knarr cargo ship ("freighter") 3 foot draft Skuldelev 1 16 foot beam, 52 foot length, crew of 6 to 8

  • p037 turn from piracy to trade and settlement than piracy again
  • p037 five month winters

  • p037 bifringent polarized calcite for sun sighting obscured by clouds

  • p038 Vikings farmers and fishermen first, warriors second
  • p039 "uluk" for exile? Perhaps útlægð, transcribed poorly

  • p039 Ingolfr Arnarson Eric the Red

  • p040 Thing

  • p041 Iceland Althing est. 930, oldest legislature in the world

  • p041 rich or poor, one vote per household

  • p041 Eiriksgata tour of all households by prospective king

  • p042 weregeld compensatory damage for injury or killing

  • p042 1094 Iceland: 4,560 free men out of 80,000 population
  • p043 Viking marriage a business contract with obligations on both parties

  • p043 Danish daughters inherited half of brother shares, Varend Sweden daughters equal shares

  • p044 wife controlled assets when husband absent, parts with husband when she no longer desires him
  • p044 older women accumulated status, took over missing or dead husband's role

  • p045 Shield maidens probably fictional

  • p048 Vikings "world leaders" in human trafficking
  • p049 Verdun, Magdeburg, Prague slave markets supplied with Viking captives, usually non-Christian Slavs
  • p049 Vikings supplied slaves for golden age of Islam
  • p050 Viking commerce was mostly slave commerce
  • p051 Vikings preferred intimidation to slaughter

  • p051 berserker irrationally violent

  • p052 Viking helmets conical, NOT adorned with animal horns
  • p053 most warriors clung to their shields, heroes were a foolhardy minority that caused most of the casualties
  • p054 berserker's life relatively short
  • p054 leaders, followers, and slaves shared the same shipboard space
  • p055 kings were chieftains approved by assembly of other chieftains and warriors
  • p055 no dynasties, succession disputes common

  • p056 Erik Bloodaxe killed five brothers to win throne of Norway, overthrown and exiled by sixth brother

  • p056 Harald Fairhair first real Norwegian king in 872

  • p057 Most early kings mythical
  • p058 most kings murdered, only four lived to a natural death

  • p060 Ch03 - The World the Vikings Made, Part One: From Russia to the British Isles

  • p068 Rurik 862 Varangian chieftain of the Rus

  • p070 capture of Armagh

  • p071 battle of Clontarf in 1014

  • p076 Isle of Man Godred Crovan

  • p079 "-by": farm or village . . . "-thorp" or "-thwaite": a clearing . . Scandinavian place names
  • p080 more than 600 Viking loan words in modern English

  • p081 cowrie sea snail shells from Gulf of Aden

  • p081 Domesday Book Scandinavian peasantry descendants 60% of Lincolnshire, 40% of East Anglia

  • p082 Sokemen between free and bond tenants

  • p083 Danelaw -> English Petition of Right -> US Bill of Rights

  • p105 Ch05 - Twilight of the Gods: Vikings, Kings, and Christianity

  • p106 Oleg added wheels to ships, assaulting Constantinople over land

  • p107 Viking soldiers Varangian Guard

  • p107 Rurik Novgorod

  • p108 Germans and Vikings similar pagan pantheon, Odin == Wotan "the furious one", patron god of Berserkers

  • p109 Poetic Edda no Germanic equivalent

  • p111 Ragnarok destruction of the gods

  • p112 Norse religion: destruction the source of renewal

  • p113 Eddas -> Wagner'sRing of the Nibelungen Tolkien'sLord of the Rings

  • p113 Tolkien founded Viking Club at University of Leeds

  • p114 hundreds of captives sacrificed routinely at the Upsalla temple complex

  • p114 primal Viking heart rejected compassion, sympathy, moral responsibility
  • p114 Islamic silver ceased arriving around 965

  • p115 Prince Vladimir chooses state religion

    • Orthodox Christianity, Latin Christianity, Rabbinical Judaism, or Islam
  • p115 Drinking is the joy of the Rus, Muslim emisssaries went home, similar for Jewish Khazars. Christian monkish abstinence rejected.
  • p115 Viking mercenaries aiding Constantinople impressed by majestic Orthodox festival. Vladimir destroyed pagan statues, baptized 988 February, and marries emperor's daughter
  • p116 prosperity and politics converted most of Scandinavia to Christianity

  • p116 ended expensive wasteful customs of sacrifice and grave goods and wergild

  • p117 eventually vendetta, violence, and bloodfeud ended

  • p117 feudalism feudum = grant of land

  • p118 Ripa? Denmark . . Birka Sweden

  • p118 four Swedish king "mercenaries" Harald Bluetooth Olaf Tryggvason

  • p119 Olaf Haraldson

  • p119 Olaf Skottkonung

  • p120 Olaf and son Anund Jacob christian but allow pagan sites like Uppsala to remain

  • p121 stave churches retained popular pagan decorations and architectures
  • p122 Viking sagas endure as popular epics, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc.
  • p123 "Christian" King Olaf continued Viking raids across Europe

  • p124 Olaf and Sven Forkbeard raided England for silver coin

  • p125 50,000 English coins dated 980-1051 in Scandinavian coin hoards
  • p126 Most of England surrendered to Sven Forkbeard, 158,000 pounds of silver tribute

  • p126 son Knut / Canute ruled England and Denmark 1018-1035

  • p128 Norway, Orkneys, Shetlands, Hebrides, and Greenland after 1028
  • p129 Canute gave his kingdom stability and security
  • p129 thane: ranks above ordinary freeman and below a nobleman

  • p130 1026 Battle of Helgeå won Norwegian crown

  • p240 Ch10 - "We Are Coming, Father Abraham": Scandinavians in the American Civil War

  • p244 Thousands of immigrants joined Union army, including author's great-great-grandfather Iver Jacobsen (Sorlie)

  • p247 Illinois Western Sharpshooters commanded by Swedish immigrant Colonel John W. Birge

    • UC Berkeley Physics Birge hall named after Raymond Thayer Birge, son of John Thaddeus Birge

  • p251 John Dahlgren Dahlgren gun, smoother curve and wider breech minimized explosions

  • p253 used on USS Monitor designed by John Ericsson

  • p255 Norwegian immigrant Quartermaster Peter Williams steered Monitor in the Battle of Hampton Roads against the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia (salvaged USS Merrimack)

  • p321 Ch13 - Men at Work: The Viking Heart and American Democracy

  • p321 Lindbergh critic Gutzon Borglum (p239) also antisemitic ...

  • p322 ... but close friend of important Jews
  • p324 Hitler destroyed Borglum sculpture of Woodrow Wilson in Poland
  • p324 Borglum friendly with Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon

  • p326 F. Scott Fitzgerald 1936: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."

  • p327 Borglum chose the 4 Mount Rushmore subjects
  • p328 Mount Rushmore completed July 1939 for $1M ($24M, inflation to April 2026 dollars)
  • p328 Borglum died 1941 March

  • p329 Charles Sorensen Cast Iron Charlie, Ford Motor Company, sequential machining production, Ford Highland Park Plant

  • p329 William Knudsen The Great Dane, Ford Motor Company, senior operations manager

  • p331 Knudsen argued with Henry Ford, fired, then transformed Chevrolet with flexible mass production

  • p331 Knudsen president of General Motors 1937 to 1940
  • p331 appointed by Roosevelt as Chairman of the Office of Production Management, vastly increased war production
  • p332 Knudsen originated "arsenal of democracy" phrase, Roosevelt copied it
  • p332 1940-1945 US produced $183B of war material, 2/3 of all Allied production
    • 141 aircraft carriers, 807 cruisers and destroyers, 203 submarines, 88K tanks, 257K artillery, 325K aircraft, growing civilian economy
  • p334 B-24 half a million parts, 300K rivets of 500 sizes
  • p334 decades later, those companies produced COVID ventilators, respirators, test kits
  • p334 Freedom's Forge Arthur Herman Bvtn Lib 940.531 HER

  • p334 Carl Sandburg 1940 Pulitzer for six volume Lincoln biography

  • p336 hometown Galesburg Illinois sanctuary on Underground Railroad, population 14% African American

  • p336 "He is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he contends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them" - Lincoln

  • p337 "Chicago" poem by Carl Sandburg

  • p338 Carl Sandburg sings "My Name is Yon Yonson"

  • p340 Carl Sandburg's “Bomber”

  • p343 Norman Borlaug

  • p344 Borlaug age 2 Marquis wheat 1916 black stem rust

  • p344 40 acres, 12,000 plants, picking and husking a million ears of corn, arms raw and bleeding

  • p345 studied under Elvin Charles Stakman at U Minn

  • p346 Borlaug increased Mexican wheat yield from 760 pounds per acre to 2500 pounds per acre in 1968
    • "almost triple the harvest" (more than, 3.3 times)
  • p346 Nobel Peace prize 1970. Criticized by (less effective) social revolutionaries, cultural activists

  • p346 Marxist journalist Alexander Cockburn accused Borlaug of mass murder CITATION NEEDED

  • p347 people hungry all the time; in 2009, Borlaug said "When I was getting started, you couldn't avoid them"

  • p348 Ch14 - The Viking Heart Come Home

  • p349 1863 Denmark annexes Slesvig and Holstein after agreeing not to 11 years earlier

  • p350 Denmark lost, 60,000 ethnic Danes displaced, most to Denmark, but thousands to America
  • p351 fueled (pessimistic) modernist movement (Ibsen, Strindberg, Brandes, Munch) well into the 20th century
    • also fueled Scandinavian abhorrence of war

  • p353 Dark Age Gaelic poet Ossian forged by Scottish poet James Macpherson

  • p355 Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig fueled modern Scandinavian Viking mania

  • p358 Volsung Saga inspires Richard Wagner

  • p360 inspires English son-in-law race theorist Houston Stuart Chamberlain, "Hitler's John the Baptist", 1899 polemic The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

  • p361 "half-Asiatic Jews"

  • p361 Thule Society 1919-1925

  • p361 political wing German Workers' Party Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP; absorbed by Nazi party

  • p362 During WW1, neutral Scandinavia had unprecedented economic growth, continuing through Great Depression

  • p363 Affluent Nobel family of moves to Saint Petersburg in 1842 Alfred (born 1833) excels in chemistry

  • p364 invents detonator in 1863, blasting cap in 1865, dynamite (sorbents and chemical stabilizers added to nitroglycerine) in 1867

  • p364 gelignite and ballistite leading to cordite smokeless gunpowder

  • p364 Nobel brothers Ludvig and Robert purchase Azerbaijan oil refinery in 1876, growing a global petroleum enterprise

  • p365 Ludvig launches Zoroaster, first oil tanker in 1878

  • p365 55yo Alfred excoriated in premature 1888 obituary, announces Nobel Prizes in 1895

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  • p373 Ch15 - The Viking Heart in War and Peace

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  • p406 Conclusion - The Viking Heart and the Land Beyond

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VikingHeart (last edited 2026-04-16 07:40:11 by KeithLofstrom)