Bloodtaking and peacemaking : feud, law, and society in Saga Iceland /
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| Author / Creator: | Miller, William Ian, 1946- |
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| Imprint: | Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1990. |
| Description: | 407 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | ACLS Humanities E-Book. |
| Subject: | |
| Format: | E-Resource Book |
| URL for this record: | http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/10514487 |
| Summary: | Dubbed by the New York Times as "one of the most sought-after legal academics in the county," William Ian Miller presents the arcane worlds of the Old Norse studies in a way sure to attract the interest of a wide range of readers. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking delves beneath the chaos and brutality of the Norse world to discover a complex interplay of ordering and disordering impulses. Miller's unique and engaging readings of ancient Iceland's sagas and extensive legal code reconstruct and illuminate the society that produced them.<br> <br> People in the saga world negotiated a maze of violent possibility, with strategies that frequently put life and limb in the balance. But there was a paradox in striking the balance--one could not get even without going one better. Miller shows how blood vengeance, law, and peacemaking were inextricably bound together in the feuding process.<br> <br> This book offers fascinating insights into the politics of a stateless society, its methods of social control, and the role that a uniquely sophisticated and self-conscious law played in the construction of Icelandic society.<br> <br> "Illuminating."--Rory McTurk, Times Literary Supplement <br> <br> "An impressive achievement in ethnohistory; it is an amalgam of historical research with legal and anthropological interpretation. What is more, and rarer, is that it is a pleasure to read due to the inclusion of narrative case material from the sagas themselves."--Dan Bauer, Journal of Interdisciplinary History <br> |
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| Physical Description: | 407 pages ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0226526798 0226526801 |