In
Iceland’s Relationship with Norway c.870 – c.1100: Memory, History and Identity, Ann-Marie Long reassesses the development of Icelandic society from the earliest settlements to the twelfth century. Through a series of thematic studies, the book discusses the place of Norway in Icelandic cultural memory and how Icelandic authors envisioned and reconstructed their past. It examines in particular how these authors instrumentalized Norway to explain the changing parameters of Icelandic autonomy. Over time this strategy evolved to meet the needs of thirteenth-century Icelandic politics as well as the demands posed by the transition from autonomous island to Norwegian dependency.
Ann-Marie Long, Ph.D. (2014), University College Dublin, Ireland, is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of History at the University of Notre Dame, USA. She has published on cultural memory in Icelandic foundation narratives ('Sturlubók and Cultural Memory' in
Sturla Þórðarson, Brill, 2017).
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Iceland’s Relationship with Norway is an ambitious and accomplished work which demonstrates the author’s sure grasp of both the relevant source material and the scholarly literature on the history and literature of Commonwealth Iceland and medieval Norway. The author’s application of social and communal ‘memory studies’ is commendable and should offer much food for thought''.
Haki Antonsson, in
Early Medieval Europe 27/2 (2019).
Those interested in the history of Commonwealth Iceland and the medieval Norse world, medieval state formation, medieval historiography, cultural memory and its function in constructions of the past.