Iceland

What does it take to build a civilisation at the edge of the inhabitable world?

Iceland's answer stretches across eleven centuries. From the Irish monks who arrived first and left their books and bells behind, to the Norse settlers who built the world's oldest parliament on a plain where two continents pull apart, to the medieval scholars who preserved Norse mythology while the rest of Scandinavia forgot it, Iceland has been producing extraordinary things from the most unlikely circumstances for as long as human beings have lived there.

This book traces the full arc of that story. The geological birth of the island from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The settlement period of 874 to 930 AD and the founding of the Althing. The Age of the Sagas, and the literary tradition that placed Iceland at the centre of medieval European culture. The centuries under Norwegian and then Danish colonial rule, the trade monopoly that impoverished the country for two hundred years, the volcanic eruption of Laki in 1783 that killed one fifth of the population, the mass emigration to Canada in the 1870s and 1880s, and the independence movement that finally produced the republic in 1944. The Cod Wars, in which a country with no navy defeated Britain three times and changed international maritime law. The 2008 financial crash and the recovery that defied conventional wisdom. The modern Iceland that leads the world in gender equality, renewable energy, and human happiness while navigating the pressures of mass tourism and rapid demographic change.

Along the way the book covers the people who made Iceland what it is: Snorri Sturluson, who saved Norse mythology from oblivion. Jón Sigurðsson, who spent his life in Copenhagen arguing for Icelandic independence and never lived to see it. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world's first democratically elected female head of state. Björk, who built one of the most remarkable careers in the history of popular music from the sound of a volcanic island. Leif Erikson, who reached North America five centuries before Columbus.

Honest, thoroughly researched, and written with genuine respect for a people whose story deserves to be told in full, this volume gives Iceland what every great country deserves: the complete account.

The Pride Series: because every country has earned its place in the human story.