How Iceland Changed the World | Bjarnason, Egill

Lange Beschreibung
'[A] joyously peculiar book.' -- The New York Times

Bjarnason s intriguing book might be about a cold place, but it s tailor-made to be read on the beach. New Statesman

The untold story of how one tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic has shaped the world for centuries.

The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago, when a frustrated Viking captain and his useless navigator ran aground in the middle of the North Atlantic. Suddenly, the island was no longer just a layover for the Arctic tern. Instead, it became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, quietly altered the globe forever. How Iceland Changed the World takes readers on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel. Again and again, one humble nation has found itself at the frontline of historic events, shaping the world as we know it, How Iceland Changed the World paints a lively picture of just how it all happened.

Rezensierung
'[A] joyously peculiar book.' -- The New York Times

'A chronicle of those thousand-plus years is breezily and likably unfolded in Egill Bjarnason s How Iceland Changed the World. -- Wall Street Journal

How Iceland Changed the World is not only surprising and informative. It is amusing and evocatively animates a place that I have been fascinated with for most of my life. Well worth the read! --Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Egill Bjarnason has written a delightful reminder that, when it comes to countries, size doesn t always matter. His writing is a pleasure to read, reminiscent of Bill Bryson or Louis Theroux. He has made sure we will never take Iceland for granted again. --A.J. Jacobs, New York Times bestselling author of Thanks a Thousand and The Year of Living Biblically

'Giving history new life'--Morgunblaðið (Iceland)

Egill Bjarnason places Iceland at the center of everything, and his narrative not only entertains but enlightens, uncovering unexpected connections. --Andri Snær, author of On Time and Water

Icelander Egill Bjarnason takes us on a high-speed, rough-and-tumble ride through 1,000-plus years of history from the discovery of America to Tolkien s muse, from the French Revolution to the NASA moonwalk, from Israel s birth to the first woman president all to display his home island s mind-opening legacy. --Nancy Marie Brown, author of The Real Valkyrie and The Far Traveler

I always assumed the history of Iceland had, by law or fate, to match the tone of an October morning: dark, gray, and uninviting to most mankind. This book challenges that assumption, and about time. Our past, much like the present, can be a little fun. --Jón Gnarr, former mayor of Reykjavík and author of The Pirate and The Outlaw

A fascinating insight into Icelandic culture and a fresh perspective on her global influence. Warning: may well make readers wish they were Icelandic, too.   Helen Russell, author of The Year of Living Danishly

'For the foreign reader, Egill s book is well suited to strengthen the understanding of contemporary Iceland, even though it is mostly about the past and tells the nation's history from foundation.'-- Björn Bjarnason, former Minister of Justice, in Morgunblaðið (Reykjavík)
 
'An in-depth, informative, and fascinating chronicle of Iceland's mostly unknown contributions to the world .'-- Arab News

'An entertaining, offbeat (and pleasingly concise) history of the remote North Atlantic nation ... perfect for a summer getaway read.' -- The Critic (London)

'Bjarnason's intriguing book might be about a cold place, but it's tailor-made to be read on the beach. '-- New Statesman

Buchausschnitt

1

The Discovery of the West

Iceland from Settlement-AD 1100

The Icelanders are the most intelligent race on earth, because they discovered America and never told anyone.

-Oscar Wilde

Somewhere in the vast northern ocean, between Iceland and Norway, Thorsteinn Olafsson got himself involved in the biggest mystery of the Middle Ages by making an honest mistake: he turned his ship a few too many degrees west. His passengers would have preferred to arrive in sweet home Iceland, but instead they had to settle for an iceberg. They got nice and close. Closer. Closer: wham. The wooden ship made a sound like a massive tree branch wrenching and splitting. There was no fair fight here between the ship and the iceberg; frozen glacial water is older and far stronger. Damaged and doomed, the ship's direction was suddenly the same as the iceberg's: wherever the currents pulled and the wind blew, there the ship went. Adrift.

Lucky for them, the winds and currents eventually blew them to land, albeit not the one they were hoping for. 'By winter,' a loose and pretty all-encompassing term in the Arctic, 'the ship made it to the East Village of Greenland,' according to a short report written roughly five years later.

The ship had arrived at the world's biggest island. From an administrative point of view, Thorsteinn had technically delivered his passengers to Iceland: this was Iceland's colony of southern Greenland.

Despite rolling around the northern North Atlantic for months, the folks on board apparently continued to enjoy one another's company. Over the next four years, none of them chose to hop on a boat to Iceland (although it remains unclear whether there were any ships available to be hopped on). Thorsteinn, probably a decent guy despite his poor sense of direction, developed a crush on a lady passenger, Sigrid Bjornsd ttir. So he asked her uncle for her hand, and they decided to marry inside that massive stone church the Greenlanders so prided themselves on.

When Sigrid Bjornsd ttir walked inside the stone church one calm September morning, her future looked as steady as the turn of the seasons. The grand arched window of the majestic fieldstone church cast light onto the crowd of 'many noble men, both foreign and local,' as noted by local authorities. With 'a yes and a handshake,' the two happy castaways were presented as husband and wife.

The wedding certificate, signed by Greenland's pastor Pall Hallvardsson, was later delivered to the bishop of Iceland and stored in Sk lholt for centuries, until some historians dug it out and did a double take at the date: September 16, 1408. This was the last-ever day on record in Erik the Red's Greenland. Shortly thereafter, following roughly four hundred years of Norse settlement, the entire vibrant community disappeared. Vanished. To this day, no one knows exactly why.

Icelanders in the Viking age had discovered Greenland in the search for more land and had turned its stock of walrus and narwhals into a global enterprise. Hungry for wood and wheat, the Icelandic Greenlanders had then launched even farther west, and thereby discovered sailing routes from Europe to North America five hundred years before Columbus. Greenland hadn't just hosted a single flimsy settlement; it had been the burgeoning site of a trade empire, a crucial link between the raw resources of North America and the powerful Viking civilization in Norway. Archaeological evidence today suggests a far bigger presence than we'd initially assumed from written records.

So how did a community of thousands, after five centuries, simply disappear without a trace? How could an entire island nation become a ghost town? And what was it like in that early America?

To unravel the myste