Northern Sphinx

Fülszöveg

Iceland, a nation-state of 250,000 people, has an importance in the world out of all proportion to its size. Because of its geographical situation it is a key member of NATO, and because of its heavy dependence on the fishing industry for its livelihood, it has been in serious conflict with more than one of its NATO allies. Iceland is a country with unique geological features - great glaciers alongside active volcanoes; and with a cultural heritage which it is alsó no exaggeration to call unique - a country settled by Norsemen in the ninth century and where the language of the first settlers is still spoken - the home of the greatest literary outpouring of the Middle Ages and of one of the noblest polities, comparable ancient Athens - occupied and exploited by foreigners from the thirteenth to the twentieth century - and finally reborn with a fresh outburst of creative activity. A well-balanced, comprehensive account in English of this extraordinary country has been lacking, and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Iceland, a nation-state of 250,000 people, has an importance in the world out of all proportion to its size. Because of its geographical situation it is a key member of NATO, and because of its heavy dependence on the fishing industry for its livelihood, it has been in serious conflict with more than one of its NATO allies. Iceland is a country with unique geological features - great glaciers alongside active volcanoes; and with a cultural heritage which it is alsó no exaggeration to call unique - a country settled by Norsemen in the ninth century and where the language of the first settlers is still spoken - the home of the greatest literary outpouring of the Middle Ages and of one of the noblest polities, comparable ancient Athens - occupied and exploited by foreigners from the thirteenth to the twentieth century - and finally reborn with a fresh outburst of creative activity. A well-balanced, comprehensive account in English of this extraordinary country has been lacking, and Sigurdur A. Magnússon, an Icelandic man of letters, has produced such a book - sympathetic as befits an Icelander but detached and sometimes critical. He examines first the originál settlers and the great Commonwealth they produced, then "Myth and Legend" - medieval Icelandic poetry and its origins - and the Sagas. How decline followed the four centuries of Icelandic greatness is described, together with the long period of foreign rule, poverty and distress that continued until well into the nineteenth century. The next chapters describe the national renaissance in the nineteenth century; the society which has grown up in the twentieth century and how it functions; the contradictory, "Sphinx-like" character of the Icelanders themselves; the whole spectrum of the creative arts in the present century, and finally the infrastructure and physical features of the country. For a note on the Author see back flap. Vissza