The Best Books on the Vikings
One book on who the Vikings were, one on what the evidence now says, and the sagas they left behind
The best single-volume history of the Vikings for most readers is Neil Price's Children of Ash and Elm (2020). Price is an archaeologist, and the book is built from what has been dug up rather than from what was written down centuries later by monks and saga authors: it treats the Scandinavians of the eighth to eleventh centuries as a people with a worldview, not as a raiding party, and it is the book specialists now recommend first.
If you want the shorter, more conventional survey, Anders Winroth's The Age of the Vikings (2014) covers the raids, the trade, the settlements and the conversion in under three hundred pages. Cat Jarman's River Kings follows a single bead from a Derbyshire grave east to the Silk Road to show how far the Viking world reached; Eleanor Barraclough's Beyond the Northlands does the same with the sagas as the guide; Robert Ferguson's The Vikings is the fullest narrative; the Oxford Illustrated History is the scholarly reference; and the Penguin Sagas of Icelanders is the primary source.
Every title below is checked against Open Library and publisher records, with editions, years and ISBNs verified rather than scraped. Where the archaeology and the written sources disagree, the guide says so.
The books
1. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings — Neil Price (2020)
The Vikings can only be understood from inside their own worldview, and the archaeology now lets us reconstruct it.
The current standard single-volume history, written by a leading archaeologist of the period and built from the material evidence.
Pick this if: Anyone who wants one serious book on the Vikings. (Level: General)
2. The Age of the Vikings — Anders Winroth (2014)
The Viking age was as much about trade, settlement and state-building as about raiding, and it ended by absorbing Scandinavia into Christian Europe.
The best short survey: the whole age in under three hundred pages, from a Yale historian.
Pick this if: Readers who want the outline first. (Level: General)
3. River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads — Cat Jarman (2022)
A single carnelian bead from a Viking grave in England leads east through Russia to the Silk Road, and that eastern world was central, not marginal, to the Viking age.
The eastern half of the Viking story, told through archaeology and a single object; first published in 2021.
Pick this if: Readers who know the western raids and want the Volga, Kyiv and Constantinople. (Level: General)
4. Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas — Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough (2018)
The sagas, read carefully, are a map of how the Norse saw the world beyond Scandinavia, from Greenland to Byzantium.
The sagas used as a travel guide to the Viking world, by a scholar of Old Norse; first published in 2016.
Pick this if: Readers who want the literature and the geography together. (Level: Intermediate)
5. The Vikings: A History — Robert Ferguson (2010)
The Viking age is a single connected story from the first raids to the last Norse kingdoms, and it can be told in order.
The fullest narrative history on the list, for readers who want the whole age told chronologically.
Pick this if: Readers who want one long story rather than a thematic survey. (Level: General)
6. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings — Peter Sawyer (editor) (2001)
The Viking age is best covered region by region by the specialists in each, with the evidence shown rather than summarised.
The scholarly reference: chapters by leading specialists, well illustrated, edited by the historian who reshaped the field.
Pick this if: Students and readers who want an authoritative reference to keep. (Level: Advanced)
7. The Sagas of Icelanders — Various (Penguin Classics; preface by Jane Smiley) (2001)
The Norse world speaks for itself in the family sagas, written in thirteenth-century Iceland about the settlement age.
The primary source: a generous selection of the sagas in modern translation, including Egil's Saga and the Vinland sagas.
Pick this if: Readers who want the literature, and anyone who has finished the histories. (Level: General)
Which Viking book to start with
Start with Price if you want the current picture and with Winroth if you want the shortest reliable one. Children of Ash and Elm is organised around how the Vikings understood themselves, their gods, their dead and their place in the world, before it turns to what they did abroad, and that order is the point: it explains the raids from the inside rather than cataloguing them from the outside. It is long, and its first third is about religion and society rather than ships, which some readers find slow. Winroth's book is the conventional shape, a survey of the raids, the trade routes, the settlements from Dublin to Kyiv and the conversion to Christianity, and it is the quicker way to the outline.
Then choose by direction. Jarman's River Kings goes east, following the Vikings down the Russian rivers to Constantinople and the Islamic world, which is the half of the story most general histories skimp. Barraclough's Beyond the Northlands goes in every direction, using the sagas as a map to Greenland, Vinland, the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Ferguson's The Vikings is the one to read if you want a single long narrative of the whole age in order.
Finally, read what they wrote. The Sagas of Icelanders were composed in the thirteenth century about events two or three hundred years earlier, so they are not eyewitness history, but they are the nearest thing to hearing the Norse world in its own voice, and Egil's Saga and Njal's Saga in particular stand with the best medieval literature in any language.
What the historians argue about
The main argument is how much to trust the written sources. The sagas were written centuries after the events by Christian Icelanders; the chronicles of the raids were written by the monks being raided. Price's book leans hard on archaeology, DNA and material culture as a corrective, and the picture that emerges is of a society more varied, more connected and less uniformly violent than the raiding stereotype. Ferguson and Winroth use the written sources more freely, with due warning.
The second argument is what the word means. 'Viking' in the sources is an activity, going raiding, rather than an ethnicity, and most Scandinavians of the period never went on one. Whether to call the whole society 'Viking' is a live question that Price addresses directly in his title.
The third is the eastern and western balance. Older histories written in English followed the Vikings to Britain, Ireland, Normandy and Iceland and left the eastern routes to specialists. Jarman's book is part of a recent effort to put the Rus, the Volga trade and Byzantium back at the centre, and the argument over how Scandinavian the early Rus really were is not settled.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best book on the Vikings?
Neil Price's Children of Ash and Elm (2020). It is the current standard single-volume history, written by an archaeologist and built from the material evidence rather than from the later sagas and chronicles, and it explains the Viking world from the inside before it follows the raids abroad. Anders Winroth's The Age of the Vikings (2014) is the shorter survey if you want the outline first.
Are the Icelandic sagas true?
Not as history. The family sagas were written in thirteenth-century Iceland about events of the ninth to eleventh centuries, so they are literature built on oral tradition, not eyewitness accounts. They are still the closest thing to the Norse world in its own voice, and the Penguin Sagas of Icelanders is the place to read them; Barraclough's Beyond the Northlands shows how historians use them carefully.
Which book covers the Vikings in Russia and the east?
Cat Jarman's River Kings (2021), which follows the Viking trade routes down the Russian rivers to Constantinople and the Islamic world. Most general histories written in English concentrate on Britain, Ireland and Normandy, so River Kings fills the half of the story they skip.
Did Vikings wear horned helmets?
No. No Viking-age helmet with horns has ever been found; the image comes from nineteenth-century art and opera. The site's separate explainer on horned helmets covers the evidence, and Price's book covers what Viking warriors actually wore.
Related guides
- Did Vikings wear horned helmets?
- How accurate is the Vikings TV show?
- Best Books on Medieval History
- The Best History Books: One Per Era
Sources consulted
- Children of Ash and Elm — Open Library record
- The Age of the Vikings — Open Library record
- River Kings — Open Library record
- Beyond the Northlands — Open Library record
- The Vikings: A History — Open Library record
- The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings — Open Library record
- The Sagas of Icelanders — Open Library record
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