Library Journal - Audio
09/01/2022
German historian Brunner's (Taming Fruit) latest work is a riveting survey of the intellectual and cultural history of "The North." Broadly exploring events from prehistory to the present, Brunner also crisscrosses a wonderfully diverse number of disciplines, including geography, climatology, literature and folklore, and political sociology. Beginning with the concept of the "North," Brunner focuses on the Arctic Region: the North Pole, Scandinavia, Greenland, Iceland, Russia, and Canada. In an academic but engaging tone, Brunner describes how the lore of the North was often shaped by people who never actually visited the region and how it is often difficult to distinguish actual events from mythologization and appropriation. Brunner shows how some tried to use the North and its people to further the concept of a superior white race while marginalizing other groups like Jewish and Inuit people. VERDICT Jonathan Yen's confident delivery and masterful pronunciations of the many non-English terms draw listeners into Brunner's descriptions of the almost magical beauty of the far North, while his expressive readings of the racist and pseudoscientific perversions of the region (by Nazis and other white supremacists) will stay with listeners long after the audiobook has ended.—Beth Farrell
Publishers Weekly
11/29/2021
Historian Brunner (Taming Fruit) explores “the North” as a place “both real and imaginary” in this captivating and wide-ranging account. He notes that ancient Greeks and Romans viewed the North as “a realm of cold and darkness, devoid of sunlight and inimical to life,” and documents how histories of the fall of Rome and ninth-century Viking attacks on Constantinople and Paris gave rise to the image of Nordic peoples as “fearsome barbarians.” Explorers’ accounts and trade in cod, whale blubber, amber, and other commodities gradually changed the image of the North, and in the 18th- and 19th-century, many German and English poets, composers, and philosophers came to view the North as an “imagined homeland.” (William Morris, a leader of the arts and crafts movement, went so far as to teach himself Icelandic.) Brunner also delves into 18th-century Scottish poet James Macpherson’s Works of Ossian, which he falsely attributed to a “third-century Scottish bard,” and French novelist Joseph Arthur de Gobineau’s racist ideas about the “Aryan” north, which helped fuel anti-Semitism in Europe and the U.S. Erudite yet accessible, and packed with intriguing arcana, this cultural history fascinates. (Feb.)
Sunil Amrith
"Beautifully written and deeply evocative, this is history that is in equal parts whimsical and disturbing. Bernd Brunner shows how scientific curiosity and the pursuit of adventure collided with malign theories of racial superiority, attributed to a myth of northern descent.… Extreme North could not be more timely."
Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir
"[This] erudite, engaging book is indispensable for understanding the cultural status of the North today."
Bathsheba Demuth
"In Extreme North, Bernd Brunner gives us a spry, fascinating tour through centuries of lore about the globe's colder latitudes. From Greek myths of Hyperborea to Enlightenment scientists to the Nazi adoration of Norse symbols, he brings alive the power of "the north" to inspire European ideas about everything from race and social organization to geography and history. Bristling with captivating details and characters, Brunner pushes us to wonder what the north is, and why it has so long fascinated people living to the south."
Andrew K. Nestingen
"From the Ultima Thule of antiquity to the practices of the North’s Indigenous peoples to stoic, Kierkegaardian faith, and on to the racial fantasies about the North’s white peoples, Bernd Brunner’s imaginative-yet-critical exploration weaves together the many, often contradictory, images and ideas about the top of the globe. It should be read by the curious, student and scholar alike."
Philipp Blom
"Extreme North is an icily bewitching panorama of the dreams and fears, the fascination and the danger of the snowy limits of civilization. In these fantasies and travel accounts, ancient legends, and wild projections, we become spectators of the age-old dance between life and landscape of Nordic climes on the one hand, and human longing on the other."
Financial Times - James Lovegrove
"A collection of curiosities…There may not be a great deal of sunniness here, or for that matter warmth, but the book makes up for that with fascinating anecdotes, useful digressions and little nuggets of interest."
Nature - Josie Glausiusz
"[Extreme North] weaves a darker tapestry, layering legends over the science and history of the north to describe a place that is real, remote, inscrutable and cold… Brunner untangles the origin of these pseudoscientific ideas, from the veneration of the Vikings and Old Norse sagas to the doctrine of ‘Nordic’ superiority promoted by Nazi ideologues."
New York Times - Liesl Schillinger
"In 31 chapters, each as self-contained and pointed as a shard of ice, Brunner presents a different historic, political, natural or cultural facet of his subject... Thought-provoking and wide-ranging, Extreme North resembles the 'cabinet of wonders' that he uses as the book’s embarkation point."
Literary Review - Phillip Parker
"Brunner’s work is a dizzying tour of the ways in which successive ages have engaged with the idea of the north… More than anything, though, the book is a reminder that the north is both a place and a perspective."
Jack E. Davis
"An intrepid researcher and writer, Bernd Brunner takes readers on a journey through time and space and into the minds of countless many.… The journey is sometimes shocking, always fascinating, and surely worth taking."
Neil Shean Scholar
"Brunner reaches deep into the journals, letters, and works of travelers, explorers, poets, and politicians, and these, in his hands, give good voice to events and trends that might otherwise offer a dry march through obscure history."
American Scholar - Neil Shea
"Brunner reaches deep into the journals, letters, and works of travelers, explorers, poets, and politicians, and these, in his hands, give good voice to events and trends that might otherwise offer a dry march through obscure history."
Literary Review - Philip Parker
"Brunner’s work is a dizzying tour of the ways in which successive ages have engaged with the idea of the north… More than anything, though, the book is a reminder that the north is both a place and a perspective."
Times Literary Supplement - Cal Flyn
"Engaging… Those who seek out cultural histories to see the world through a strange new lens may particularly enjoy the section exploring how the North was misperceived in antiquity."
Washington Examiner - Michael Taube
"Brunner’s fascinating series of historical reflections and personal observations, as translated into English by Jefferson Chase, shines a bright light on the North’s politics, culture, and people. The fine line between fantasy and reality, which has been regularly and inescapably blurred beyond belief, has more clarity than ever before."
Jack Davis
"An intrepid researcher and writer, Bernd Brunner takes readers on a journey through time and space and into the minds of countless many who had something profound to say about the northernmost reaches of the globe. The journey is sometimes shocking, always fascinating, and surely worth taking."
Library Journal
12/10/2021
In this latest work, Brunner (The Art of Lying Down; Inventing the Christmas Tree) explores the cultural constructs that surrounds northern climes through literature, travel, and the arts. The "North" in this work is predominantly northern Europe: Iceland, Denmark and Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Brunner examines misappropriations of northern culture included mythologizing their gods, customs, and sagas, the author explains. For example, the horns on Viking helmets are not supported by archaeological evidence and were probably created by a costume designer for Richard Wagner's Ring cycle opera. The narrative also explores the popularity of Nordic culture over the centuries. For example, Nordic culture was so popular that a rumor circulated in the 19th century that Queen Victoria was related to Odin. Unfortunately, not all appropriations were benign. The Nazis used Nordic tropes in their propaganda to bolster their claims of antisemitism and the purity of the Aryan race. As the author tells, these ideas of a "white and unsullied population" still resonate as evidenced by President Trump's 2018 comment calling for more immigration from Norway. VERDICT As content creators continue to find inspiration in the mythical north, readers interested in why these themes have had such longevity will find this book invaluable.—Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Lib., IN
Kirkus Reviews
2021-10-30
An investigation of the cultural history and mythology of “the North,” which “represents a space both real and imaginary.”
German historian Brunner begins by explaining the concept of the North; where it begins is “in the eye of the beholder.” Depending on where you live—North America, Europe, Africa, etc.—your concept of the North will vary. As with the South, Brunner asserts, “over time,” the North “has also become layered with cultural and political meanings, baggage even.” In an engaging, sometimes academic tone, the author analyzes how the idea of the North has evolved over the centuries. Among the many topics he explores are early European fears of Viking raids, the effects of the European obsession with finding a northwest passage to China, and Norse myths and fairy tales. Stories of fierce Vikings continue to fire the imagination despite the fact that “we have only the flimsiest evidence of how men and women of Viking times might have looked.” As demand for products such as whale blubber, cod, and narwhal ivory grew, writes Brunner, the image of the Nordic people shifted from “fearsome barbarians to trustworthy merchants with whom good business could be done.” However, acts of barbarism toward Indigenous populations beginning in the 16th century forever changed their lives. “It was only in the late nineteenth century that Westerners began to develop even a rudimentary understanding of Inuit culture,” and the Inuit were but one among many northern peoples the Europeans encountered. During this time, scientists and romantic travelers also had an increasing interest in seeing the North as opposed to merely reading about it. Yet another shift came following World War I, with an increase in writings related to racial science, which described a “superior” branch of humanity and “channeled interest in the North in an ominous new direction.” Today, writes the author, “the mythical North remains very much in currency,” continuing to inspire writers, environmentalists, politicians, and adventurers.
A fascinating and historically disturbing journey through an intriguing land of mystery and legend.
