Violence and Risk in Medieval Iceland

This book investigates the history of violence in medieval Iceland, testing theoretical tools by applying them to a series of case studies drawn from the Icelandic sagas.

Oren Falk is a cultural historian of medieval Europe, educated in Jerusalem, Israel, and Toronto, Canada. He works primarily with Icelandic sagas; his recurring interests include histories of violence, gender, folklore, and ecology, as well as historical methodology. Falk has written on unexpected absences - things that ought to be there but aren't - such as wives, beards, and heirs apparent, and on equally surprising presences: pregnant warriors, sodomitic cats, and outlawed rituals.

Preface
Introduction
1: What does violence have to do with history?
2: Chronicling a blood-spattered isle
3: The blood in the feud
4: Killing ambition
5: Violence, naturally
Epilogue: Violence as a cultural system
Appendix: History from a story, a structural approach to saga textuality