Iceland imagined : nature, culture, and storytelling in the North Atlantic

Summary: "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."--Page 4 of cover.

Record details

ISBN: 9780295992938
ISBN: 029599293X
Physical Description: print
xvi, 260 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Edition: 1st pbk. ed.
Publisher: Seattle : University of Washington Press, 2013.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-251) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Introduction: imagining Iceland, narrating the North -- Icelandic landscapes -- Natural histories and national histories -- Nordic by nature -- Classifying and controlling Flora and Fauna in Iceland -- Mastering the world's edges -- Technology, tools, and material culture in the North Atlantic -- Translating and converting -- Language and religion in Greenland -- Reading backward -- Language and the sagas in the Faroe Islands -- Epilogue: whales and men -- Contested scientific ethics and cultural politics in the North Atlantic.