Great topic, awful presentation

I have listened to about 40 titles from the Great Courses and this is the first one that I have actually disliked. The teacher is simply awful. He doesn't give context, just a random stream of facts and he continually shouts at the audience as he rushes through the material. As someone else said, you just can't remember most of what was said; not because it was complex, but because it was presented in such a 'stream of consciousness' kind of way.

So, I have listened to many history audiobooks and when I saw The Vikings, I thought "There's a group that I don't know much about, this should be interesting." And indeed the basic topic and material is interesting.

But can we please have a different professor give their account of this material? Kenneth Harl shouts unpleasantly loudly, especially when he gets passionate about a topic. Further, he talks too fast and gets even faster when excited (so now he's talking too fast and too loudly).

To make things worse, he gives no real context to each lecture or to compartmentalize each section within a lecture. So it's just a stream of facts -- frequently with digressions to completely random facts that he happens to remember at the time (as in an uncle saying "Oh yes, that reminds me of the time we went to Stockholm...". Seriously, he must have told us that Jahrl means Earl about ten times. I really get the impression that he hadn't prepared this material in detail and it was just "Hey, I've got this, I can just wing it because I know it so well". Yep, he does, but you won't.

Without this context, and with the headlong rush of too-fast presentation, you are relieved to get to the end of the lecture and then reflect on what you've learned. Oh great, I just can barely remember any of it. There is a tremendous amount of material here, but without context, it's just ephemeral and rather a waste of time.

When he covered 1066 and the battles of King Harold, I thought "Oh good, something I'm familiar with". After the lecture, my concerns with this lecture series became a lot clearer. Given how poorly and disjointedly this lecture was presented, on a subject that I already knew, *no wonder* I was finding the other lectures haphazard and unstructured!

Go listen to Robert Garland (The Other Side of History) -- there is a professor who is also passionate about his topic but is able to present complex ideas within context, adds humor and makes the knowledge accessible and memorable.

Great Courses, please have someone else do a lecture series on The Vikings, I'd like to see this material given the presentation that it deserves.

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73 people found this helpful

Enthralling Presentation of a Fascinating Subject

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I highly recommend this lecture series. Professor Harl is a fantastic presenter thus making an interesting subject even more so given his depth of knowledgeable and dynamic coverage of Viking History.

I took a risk in choosing a lecture series for the first time on a subject I was only mildly interested in. The risk paid in spades. I honestly expected an arduous churn up a deep information stream and yet found I was shooting the rapids with a fascinating guy: great voice, dynamic spirit, excellent depth, intriguing side bars. I found myself consumed by the lectures and now seeking out more about the lore and history of Vikings.

Have you listened to any of Professor Kenneth W. Harl’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This the first time I've listened to the work of Professor Kenneth W. Harl and he presents the subject in such a fantastic way, I'm already trying to pick the next lecture from this man.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

18 hours worth of material is too much for one sitting (IMO) but I'll be damned if I didn't churn through it within just a few days once I cracked it open. So well presented and logically divided by topic that I found myself absorbed by the work, focused on the subject and listening pretty much non-stop.

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70 people found this helpful

Thor, of course, and Bluetooth(!?)

Savage and violent aggressors, looters, slave traders, the Vikings do indeed make the perfect mindless "heroes" in video games! And it's very hard to picture them in the guise of the meek, mild, socialistic Scandinavians of today.

Professor Harl presents us with the real story, and, in some ways, it matches our preconceptions of the massive, feared raiders of movies and TV. Did you know, for instance, that there was a Viking king called "Bluetooth?" And, sadly, that the Vikings did not wear those cool horned helmets? What they did was learn from the cultures they dominated; they intermarried and absorbed much of the culture of their conquests.

In fact, they had an enormous influence on Britain, Germany, Iceland, Eastern Europe, even Russia. Yet that relentless warrior ethic sort of melded into the cultures of all these places and leaves little trace at home.

This course is very long, and some of the details may be most interesting only to specialists and/or those of Scandinavian descent, but there is much here for the listener with a more casual interest in history. The Professor presents a full range of Viking legacies - financial, military, artistic and literary - with enthusiasm and full command of his subject.

Once again, the Great Courses comes through with a fascinating presentation.

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60 people found this helpful

One of the better introductions into the topic

What other book might you compare The Vikings to and why?

I spent about 10-15 years reading a lot about the Scandinavian activities between 500 and 1200 (and still refuse to call that time just "the time of the Vikings", it just doesn't cover that). My interests cover a variety of topics: Politics, social life, religious beliefs - and, on top of everything, the "why". Why did people risk so many lives in undertaking enormous journeys oversea without guarantee of safely returning home? Why did a society function (quite well, as it seems) that seems to be based on "a human life is worth nothing more than its weight in goat skin"? Why did people believe in the "Gods" they believed in and why did they accept a single "God" over their established religious system?
And why, the heck, did it take nearly a thousand years to make that Christian believe system accept women to have their own rights (like kicking their husbands in the backs and get a divorce for the benefit of everyone) if those "stupid pagans" had it up and running for so long before those "well educated, culturally higher evolved" Christians?

I listened to D.C. Drout's "The Norsemen" (nicely excited tutor, some content should be taken with a LOT of salt there as Drout dislikes to give any proof for what he tells his audience, while he definitely seems to see some things differently to many book authors), I listened to J. Paxton's "The Year 1066" (very brief, a mere overview over political actions without much background, but a good, condensed reminder in that) from Audible. Among these three audio books this course by Mr. Harl is the one I'd recommend for getting some understanding of "what happened", even of some parts of the "why".

What does Professor Kenneth W. Harl bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Unfortunately I found Mr. Harl's presentation - while being well paced, dramatic, honest and emotionally moving - distracting at times.
The pro is, I loved the fact that I did never feel like falling asleep, there's just too much energy and heart felt action in his performance.

But why, please, does Mr. Harl insist in "American" pronunciations of names of people and places? I do not know of any "King Canude" or any "Hecken". Sure, I do understand that different languages come with different "renderings" of names, no problem. But if you are into HISTORY, if you want to discuss topics with other students, scholars, human beings (that are NOT American-only, that may speak in "foreign" - haha - language), it would make a lot of sense to use people's and place's original names (or at least some approximation of those). "Canude" is, it took me some time to realize, "Knut". "Hecken" is, it was easier to guess, "Håkon". The same goes for places (cities, villages, whatsnots).
If you do not know any of the names mentioned, this is probably not an issue. If you do have some previous knowing-of-who-is-who, you may well get lost as to who Mr. Harl is talking about.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

As with most course I listened to (through Audible or otherwise) the thing that I miss the most is PROOF. Where do the tutors get their knowledge from? Why can they say "it was this way and not the other way"? What makes them 100% certain that they know EXACTLY what happened? Where did they get their interpretations from?
If you have the slightest doubt about one topic or the other, it may "block" you from taking the best from these lectures, because you have no way of discussing questions with the tutor. You have to "forget" about UNDERSTANDING things if your personal recherche has come up with some different points of view.
So the best approach to enjoy a course like this is to "just listen, don't think".
This may sound a bit cloudy ... let me put it this way:I am not sure that Mr. Harl's personal area of expertise is "the Scandinavian history from 200-1200". I got the impression, at times, that he is just quoting, without any personal interpretation or even an attempt of critical (scientific?) doubt, what books and scholars present.
THIS he does greatly. Personally I would have wished for some more "I personally think that ..." and less "this is how it was".

Any additional comments?

My critique seems to be a bit negative. It isn't. I am trying to point out what I disliked, because, all in all, this course is well worth the time spent with it. You do get a great overview not only over the political history, the connections between many of the (Germanic and other) tribes/clans/families/peoples in (North- AND South) Europe. There isn't much time spent on "Gods and religions", but that's ok, as this course tries to concentrate on "worldly matters".
"The Vikings" (haha) had more to offer than just some believable, human-ish, crazy Gods.

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38 people found this helpful

Good Informational Listen

I liked it. I enjoy history, and with this book, history is what you get. The narration is obviously a bit different, since it is a compilation of lectures. College style. I know this might bore some listeners, but I enjoyed it. It is, what it is, no more, no less, an informative lesson on Norse history, a bit of Norse mythology, and what seems to be a true account, and a timeline, of the Scandinavian people, and their culture, their customs, and their history. If you enjoy history, and nonfiction, I think you should give it a shot. Especially if your of Norwegian heritage.

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34 people found this helpful

Not bad, but mainly a timeline of Scandinavians

I'm compelled to write a review on this Great Course because it was very different from what I expected. Harl is a great professor, but not on Scandinavian peoples. One can immediately tell that this is not his dedicated area of study, and he makes no effort to pronounce our words correctly. I don't understand why this is acceptable. I assume there would be backlash if Spanish or African names were butchered in a "Great Course" like this.

These lectures basically give a timeline of when the peoples of Scandinavia attack/ trade with other parts of Europe. If you're interested in how a group of people moves across geography, this may interest you more than me. I found it extremely dry. I'm aware that the people of Scandinavia came to the areas currently called Ireland, England, Russia, and so on. If I want the dates of battles, I can look on Wikipedia. The content that I was actually interested in (and expected to hear in a "college level" class called "The Vikings" is cultural info on family, diet, literature, clothing, religion, weapons, battle, etc. It's very thin here. You'll get more info on each of those topics with a 5 minute Google search. That was disappointing, because without that type of cultural and contextual info, the dry facts are much harder to absorb. Your mind just wanders.

All the Great Courses have supplemental PDF materials and the other courses I've bought have had great packets. This one did not seem to be prepared by the professor. Maybe I'm off-base, but this looks more like a partial transcript of the audio than organized lessons. I was really disappointed that it's not even in an outline form, which would've been the least I expected for this "timeline" type format.

Lastly, I'll comment on the reviewers saying that Harl has verbal tics, is yelling, and so forth. That's complete nonsense, and for me the delivery was the least problematic aspect of this course. Yes, he pronounces the word "allies" like "uh-LIZE" which isn't something I've ever heard before. But so what? He has a regional accent. I'm sure I have one too in English (my family's from Holland). These are lectures by a real professor who's an educator, not a professional audiobook actor. If that's going to bother you (and you refuse to simply change the speed on the audible app), then you'll dislike virtually all of the Great Courses. If you fall in that category, you'll be happier with the delivery of biographies and history books with professional narrators. Usually the drawback of those materials is the narrator not being educated on the subject.

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31 people found this helpful

Raiders on the Forefront of History

I absolutely love medieval history, but until now my knowledge of the Vikings was perhaps underserviced. The fault is mine alone, based on a misperception that the Norse raiders of old were essentially "ye olde biker gang" writ large. But no matter where you look in medieval history, the Vikings are right there at the forefront, so I knew needed to fill in some glaring gaps in my understanding.

The Great Courses series is generally fantastic on a wide range of topics, and this particular course is no exception. I am blown away at how much I learned in a relatively short amount of time. I've come to respect the Vikings' place in history, even if I can't always respect how they secured it. There are deeper layers to their culture that make them far more interesting as a study in contradiction, which in turn lends even more to the larger tapestry that they've woven themselves into. If you're looking for a solid course on just how much history has turned as a result of the Viking culture, look no further. This one's a winner.

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16 people found this helpful

Were there any Scandinavian women?

I am a big fan of the Great Courses but they are uneven. Some are great, and others are like your most annoying college professors. This one was in the latter category. The lecturer speaks way too fast and it is difficult to follow him. But worse, he seems to think that the Vikings sprung up out of the Earth fully-formed rather than were born to women. He throws out things like "all Scandinavians who weren't slaves learned to use arms at an early age." All, really? including girls? Or was he just ignoring 50% of the population?

If you really like the kind of history that is a series of facts presented in a row, this battle was at this time, this king did that, blah blah blah, you'll love this. Personally I like my history presented with more context and more of why events are connected to each other. Social history is part of that context, and it is completely absent in this - at least up to the halfway point, where I gave up.

I'm not writing this as a feminist diatribe - but more a plea for history courses to provide more than just the battles & feats of the various kings. Put a little humanity into it and it will be a whole lot more interesting, and thus a whole lot more memorable. I feel that I learned nothing from the first half of this course.

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14 people found this helpful

A better title would be Geography of the Vikings

“And..ug....and...ug...and....and...and” The lecturer has problems. It is so hard to listen to all the “and’s” and “uuug’s.” Combine that speaking pattern with long passages of tributaries and rivers and geography, the result is very difficult to follow.


I generally enjoy the Great Courses series, but this Course was almost unbearable.

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13 people found this helpful

They're not Hagar the Horrible after all.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Dr. Harl was my favorite professor at Tulane, and he is true to form here. Every lecture is packed with information, presented in an interesting and even exciting way by an excellent public speaker who really knows his stuff.

What did you like best about this story?

Definitely the information about the Viking ships.

Which character – as performed by Professor Kenneth W. Harl – was your favorite?

It's a lecture series, so it hasn't really got characters. My favorite part was learning that the Battle of Hastings in 1066 was really just Viking on Viking, with the Angles, Saxons and native Britons waiting around to see what set of invaders would be running the show next.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It would kill you to listen to that much history all at once.

Any additional comments?

I am glad Dr. Harl didn't throw in the nastiest stuff there is to know about the Vikings. I did an independent study based on Anglo-Saxon writings about the Vikings, and they were pretty terrible from the victim's standpoint. But they were also clever, good at fitting in wherever they went, incredibly brave, fine athletes, wonderful poets, and the founders of a surprising number of nations in addition to the Scandinavian countries. I think I'll just go and build myself a longship now.

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10 people found this helpful