This was an absolutely fascinating book!

I have always been intrigued by the lands of Scandinavia and know little of their history beyond how they raided and settled parts of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as ventured as far as North America. Little did I know that they also made it to Constantinople and parts of Russia. I also figured that the women of Scandinavia were limited as their contemporaries were to roles in the home. Archeological evidence suggests otherwise and that is what most of this book focuses on: the role of women in Viking life. Weavers, mystics, warriors, traders, adventurers and more. A really great introduction to the Northwomen of history!

The Northwomen is a well-researched, well-written history of Viking women and the roles they played in Scandinavian society. It's also an interesting history into modern archaeology's evolving understanding of these women. I thought it was pretty cool.

What do you know about Viking women? I knew that there were women warriors but it never seemed all that important in history. This is a book of the women in Viking society. Pringle tells of the lives of these often overlooked women through their historical traces and objects left behind. There were battlefield spells and charms used by women, which have often been discounted by archaeologists. The author has written in the beginning of each chapter a fictional episode. I enjoyed the fictional episodes and the informative history it was based upon. This is a remarkable history book to read.

Disclaimer: I received an arc of this book from the author/publisher from Netgalley. I wasn’t obligated to write a favorable review. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.

Well-written and engaging, The Northwomen will appeal to both scholars and those who have an affinity for women's history, and history in general. Filled with creative imaginings (considering we don't have information on Viking women, Pringle brings an aspect of women's history to life with interviews with experts in the field, and interesting ideas about what life was like for these women who chose adventure instead of/in conjunction with, home-life.

4 1/2 stars. This is a fascinating work that provides much needed information about the role of women in the Viking world where they have been traditionally ignored by scholars, in part, because of the lack of written records and also because of the bias of male academics that unfortunately still exists in some scholars today. Through new archaeological information and reviewing and reinterpreting old finds, the role of women is beginning to come into focus. Old rich burials that were identified as male warriors have recently been reidentified as female through DNA and anthropological reexamination even though some continue to deny that information.

This book does not only focus on what could be female warriors but the many other roles women played including magic wielders, weavers, merchants, wives, slaves, and religious roles which are clearly designated into sections in the book. It was astonishing to discover the amount of work women did to weave sails and clothes necessary for the Viking expeditions. That actually took the most work of any aspect of the raids, including building the ships. It took years of women work hours to provide sails for a fleet. Without their work there would not have been any Viking era. And, of course, that was not their only role, often being mothers, wives, overseeing households and making meals to name a few at the same time.

There is plenty of other fascinating information that I will leave you to discover for yourself if you read this book. Pringle discusses the amazing discoveries, trade and travels Vikings made from North America to the Mediterranean and Byzantium through the steppes of Russia and the Ukraine. And these likely included women based on archaeological evidence. However, she does not gloss over the darker side of Viking life which included murder, devastations to towns and country farms, rape and slavery.

Vikings were a complex group that had a darker side but were far from barbarians without sophisticated beliefs, technology and drive. This book adds much needed information to our understanding of Vikings that gives a much better view into their society, accomplishments and dark deeds by the incorporation of women into the narrative. After all, you have only half the story if you leave out half the society.

I definitely recommend this book. It is very readable and informative.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

The Northwomen: Untold Stories From the Other Half of the Viking World by Heather Pringle is a groundbreaking exploration of the often-overlooked women of the Viking era. 

The book challenges long-held assumptions about Viking women, revealing them as powerful and influential figures in their society. Far from being mere homemakers, these women were warriors, traders, artisans, explorers, and even queens. 

Pringle’s writing is engaging and accessible, making the historical and archaeological details come alive. She skillfully weaves together stories of individual women with broader historical contexts, providing a comprehensive view of the Viking world. 

One of the most striking aspects of The Northwomen is its ability to connect the past with the present. 

For readers interested in history, archaeology, and women’s studies, The Northwomen is a must-read. Heather Pringle has crafted a narrative that is not only informative but also deeply inspiring.

The Northwomen by Heather Pringle uncovers details about the critical roles that Viking women played in areas like warfare, spirituality, and leadership. Each chapter begins with a vivid fictional vignette, which offers a creative entry point into the historical analysis that follows and helps readers to reimagine the lives of these often-overlooked women through the historical traces and objects left behind. I was especially intrigued by the discussion of battlefield spells and charms used by women, which historians have often undercut or dismissed despite their clear significance in Viking culture. The author challenges the entrenched biases of (mostly male) scholars who have long gone to great lengths to diminish the findings related to Viking women. These stories underscore our contemporary understanding that Viking women were not passive figures. They were spiritual leaders, warriors, and agents of power, whose influence shaped both the Viking Age and its legacy. Through rigorous research and compelling storytelling, this book is one step toward restoring these women to their rightful place in history.

My thanks to National Geographic for providing an advance digital copy for review.
4.5/5

I really enjoyed The Northwomen. It is not very often we see the stories of the women from the past told and it is evident through the writing that Pringle is very well researched on this topic.

The Northwomen by Heather Pringle, have you ever wondered how the other half of the Vikings lived? Well through their death Heather Pringle does her best to try and answer that question but also answers so many others. This book was so interesting from sorcerers to actual female warriors and everything in between the excavation of graves in the Netherlands has given us so much information from the Osberg ladies to Lady Melhus, The author has left no stone unturned. From talking to professor Neil Price who is thought to be the most knowledgeable man on Vikings alive today to many many others. It seems she has traveled the world to find out everything she could about the females we hear nothing from. How they possessed international treasures how they played a bigger part in Viking battles then once thought and the importance some of them held. Not only are the stories of these women interesting how they came across the information through research and do diligence is also so very intriguing. I absolutely enjoyed this book and couldn’t put it down, from the beginning with the Erie burial ceremony until the end I was totally entertained. I sat up in bed reading it and didn’t want to stop it was so good. This is a book I absolutely recommend it’s a great read for any fan of viking and Scandinavian history. Heather Pringle takes back the history the patriarchy tried to bury or didn’t find important enough to mention. #NetGalley, #NationalGeography, #HeatherPringle, #TheNorthWomen,

The Northwomen seems to be a well researched book, with what little research there seems to be on the subject.

Even if the author hadn’t mentioned that they were a writer for National Geographic, you can definitely tell. It felt like I was reading a magazine and not an informative book. My biggest problem is the short fictional portraits at the beginning of each chapter, which feels like we see more in articles and Netflix documentaries and to me it is not needed. If you want to write fiction then do that. Historical fiction is a fantastic genre, and one that I absolutely adore, but there is no reason to mesh fiction into a supposed non-fiction book. I get that this might be a strange hill to die on, but it made me feel like the author did not want to tell the story of Viking era women based on the facts, but rather tell the story of Viking women that fit their narrative.

I appreciate the amount of research the author put into this book, and the broad look at what women could have been during the Viking age.

Thank you Netgalley and National Geographic for the ARC of this book.

3.5 stars

This is a look at the women in Viking society. The author looks at archaelogical evidence of the kinds of activities women likely did. Many are things that people do not assume of Viking women. They do include things like weaving (sails, armour, etc.) and there were slaves, but there were also women warriors, merchants, voyagers, and more.

This was good. Interesting. I’ve really not read much about Vikings. This did include some broader Viking history, but with a focus on the women and the archaeological evidence that has been found to refute the assumptions that it was men only who were the warriors, merchants, and travellers. I did find this mostly interesting, but I did also lose focus at times. Being nonfiction, it did take a bit longer to read.

I'm always interested people who look at history and ask the question: where are the women? Obviously they were there, but women and their stories aren't recorded as often as men, and so are frequently overlooked and forgotten.

In The Northwomen, journalist Heather Pringle searches for women in Viking world and talks to expert archaeologists who are looking at new (and old) evidence to rewrite what has been "established fact" for so long about the Viking world.

Pringle does an amazing job here, helping to tell the stories that archaeologists are discovering in ways that laypeople can understand, bringing us into the world of explorers, traders, artisans, raiders, and sorceresses to think about how Viking women could have lived- and when (and if) they might have held power in that world.

I loved how archaologically focused this book was, making the world very concrete and evidence based. One of my favorite chapters, surprisingly, was on weavers. Pringle interviewed people who have been studying and actually re-creating as much as possible the original Viking weaving methods, and used them to help make a woolen sail for a recreated Viking ship. The amount of work that went into the project and what they learned about the work the women would have done was amazing, and really captured me. There were even descriptions of woolen 'armor' that men would have worn when going into battle- in much of the world, not just among the Vikings! And all of it would have been created by women.

Pringle doesn't try to completely rehabilitate the Vikings as a people, but recognizes the negative aspects of their society as well as the positive. She talks about them as a slave trading society (as were most societies of their day) and does a really interesting comparison to modern psychological studies in the slave trade to try to understand what it would have been like for women who were subjected to this.

Overall, The Northwomen was a wonderfully written, well researched book that makes the latest archaeological research on women in the Viking world accessible to anyone who is interested in finding out about it. I definitely recommend this book!

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

Magic-wielders, protectors, laborers, slaves, merchants, fighters, explorers to shores across an ocean, forbearers to one of the great European civilizations: all women. A strong sail is stitched together in Pringle's book, The Northwomen, taking readers back to the rolling hills and salty coasts of Scandinavia, all the way to the halls of Constantinople, in an accessible, humanizing narrative about history's oft-forgotten "other half," this time, in the north of Europe.

Pringle brings vivid color to women we only know of through burial goods and archeological remnants which have long lost their original luster (plus some written accounts with hard-to-discern lines between fact/fiction). She also manages to weave in modern information, with tales about current-day researchers, her travels to relevant sites, and even U.N. data and accounts from Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS, and what studying them can potentially reveal about women in history that went through the same thing—such as women enslaved by the Vikings.

Most importantly, through the whole work, Pringle illuminates the women we all know were living in Scandinavia between the 9th and 11th centuries, but rarely appear in the annals. Of all civilizations, few are portrayed in popular culture as overtly masculine—in my opinion—as the Vikings. But, it goes without saying that that isn't a picture fully representative of the truth. Pringle's book is, as she hoped it to be, truly one of the first steps forward to dispelling that notion

The Northwomen by Heather Pringle is an exploration of Viking women and their roles in history. The author spins an interesting narrative of the history and archaeological finds. The author points out that women in paintings and illustrations are most often shown as cooking or tending to children, though their contributions required long hours and expertise especially for making boat sails. These women were warriors, voyagers, weavers, and unfortunately, slaves.

I would recommend this book for nonfiction and history readers who appreciate learning about women forgotten in history. I discovered in this book that Vikings were buried in full size boats! But surprisingly to archaeologists, some of the burial mounds contained women who appeared to be significant and revered. These women need to be recognized for their place in history and contributions to the development of societies.

Thank you National Geographic and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and National Geographic for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t usually read history nonfiction so please take the following with a grain of salt. Heather Pringle utilizes a framing technique of beginning each chapter with an imagined fictional take on a different Viking woman, which she notes herself was a choice she made to try and get the reader into the mindset of what these very real fully human people would have been like. This does two things- it helps people like me who don’t usually read history get through what could otherwise be a “dry” topic, but it also is a slippery slope into presumption and guesswork. The tone for me felt like far too often it slid into conjecture and guesswork. Pringle often uses the technique of posing a question without answering it as a method of getting the reader to think about the possibility, but more often it feels as if the reader is supposed to assume the answer. I love history that makes you remember that these were indeed real true humans with emotions and feelings and deep inner lives, but it’s a tricky balance to not fall into speculation rather than fact. So while I enjoyed a book reminding everyone that “women were important too”, I felt a bit unfulfilled and not sure what all I learned as fact by the end of the book. Very readable and interesting but not sure I’d push a recommendation on many of my friends.

Such a fun read! I’ve always loved the history in itself of the Vikings- but I absolutely devoured this book allll about the Viking women. I was thankful for the opportunity to read it as well because of how often women’s roles and their importance in cultures of the past are so often not told and/or downplayed. Super informative and packed full of knowledge and information for how short of a read it is. Definitely worth the amazing rating!

A great read & worth the rec. thanks to NetGalley and National Geographic for the opportunity to read this arc in exchange for my honest review.

While the Vikings are known for their fearsome raids across Europe, the role of women has been largely overlooked. This book uses archaeological evidence and historical research to reveal the true story of Viking women as powerful participants in a complex society with a surprisingly modern gender ideology.

This book is informative and easy to understand. The fictional vignettes, which illustrate the possible social context of the archaeological finds, help make the content more engaging.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Wow!! What an Amazing book!!! If your a fan of Viking history or the historical world of women this is a boo you must read. Informative and Fun!!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Heather Pringle for an Advanced Reader's Copy of this title!

"The Northwomen" chronicles research into the little-known lives of women in Viking history. As someone who has always been interested in Viking history and portrayal of Vikings/Norse mythology in media (if you haven't played or watched a playthrough of the new God of War series, I HIGHLY recommend, it was so good), I was so pleased to receive an advanced copy of this book!

If you enjoy historical non-fiction in any sense I think this will be a fantastic book for you. It is thoroughly researched (in the kindle version about the last 20% of the book is references) and I think does a good job of describing what we know from historical records and noting what is fact versus inference. Studying people who lived over 1,000 years ago is fraught with mystery and frustration and I was really impressed at the lengths researchers have gone to try and decipher what remains for us to learn from.

I think that trying to amass a book of research can invariably become boring without the right person writing it, and Heather Pringle was that person. I liked the fictional glimpses into the past she included at the beginning of each chapter to help set the reader into the research she would be discussing and I also think that the way she arranged the historical finds she described flowed well and felt like walking through a museum exhibit without being disjointed. I understand she has other books and I'll definitely be seeking out more of them after this!

*Received as a free ARC*
I requested this book crossing my fingers that it would be written in an approachable way and I was not disappointed! As a former classicist and anthropologist, I am always fascinated in minority and untold histories. I had a passing familiarity with Vikings and had absolutely noticed the lack of attention paid to the stories of women. I heartily enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys such historical accounts. I expect this book will end up being used in university classes, but it's absolutely understandable to the lay person.