"How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island" by Egill Bjarnason explores the remarkable journey of a nation that has had an outsized impact on global history. The book takes readers through Iceland's history, from its ancient Viking roots to its modern-day achievements. Bjarnason shows how the unique geographical and cultural aspects of Iceland's isolation from the rest of the world fostered a distinctive society that thrived against all odds.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

Author Egill Bjarnason takes us on a trip around Iceland providing trivia and historical tidbits about the country.

For everyone who doesn't know much about Iceland and doesn't know where to start- this is the book for you! Written in a casual, witty, conversational style, this is history made accessible to everyone. From how Iceland was founded to how it became independent, from how climate change has effected its landscape to how it has effected climate change, from Iceland's role in the creation of Israel to having the first elected female president, "How Iceland Changed the World" covers all the highlights. Egill Bjarnason has a relaxed, story-telling approach to the book, and treats the reader like a friend he's having a conversation with- including telling stories and jokes with a dry humor that made me laugh out loud more than once.

A great book for anyone interested in Iceland.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Filled with humor and facts, interesting and entertaining, this book seems meticulously researched and is a pleasure to read. Some of the information, casually presented, is nothing short of astonishing.

It’s not often at all that I can read a history of a specific nation and consider it “fun.” Enjoyable? Yes. Informative? Yes. Depressing at points? Definitely yes. But fun? That is very much an exception.

And one of those exceptions is what I found right here in Egill Bjanason’s “How Iceland Changed the World.” Here, I got to learn how despite being out on Europe’s periphery in the far northern Atlantic, this little island has impacted the world to an almost straddling amount through a fascinating variety of roles. These include serving as a staging point for the brief Viking colonies in Greenland and elsewhere in North America, being an invaluable repository of mythical and linguistic knowledge of pagan Scandinavia, and finding itself a neutral island-turned-military base during WWII, to name only several of the hats it has worn. For a land whose modern population still hasn’t even reached 400,000 people, its 1,200-year-old history as presented here by Bjanason is delightfully packed to the brim with all the surprising ways that Iceland and its people have punched above their weight over time.