Extreme North by Bernd Brunner
North is a relative concept, so much so that medieval cartographers often flipped our familiar perceptions by placing north at the bottom rather than the top of the map. To the ancient Greeks, Europe was north. For the Romans, north began on the far side of the Alps.
Bernd Brunner’s Extreme North surveys this shifting imaginative domain. Scotland was deemed as “north” in the early modern period, as was Russia. However, before long, north became Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland and the Arctic where the North Pole lured adventurers and the Inuit dwelled on the ice. Extreme North lucidly summarizes the fascination with the region, including the sagas that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien and Richard Wagner, the polar explorers, Nanook of the North and the Nazi conception of the north as the birthplace of the “Aryan race.” Brunner debunks many notions, including the idea that the Vikings went around with horned helmets.
