Viking America: The First Millennium. By Geraldine Barnes. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2001. Pp. xx + 187. $70.

The approximate millennium of Leifr's first voyage to Vinland inspired the production of a number of books on the subject. The present volume concerns itself mainly with the reception of the Vinland stories in British and American literature of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-twentieth centuries. An introductory chapter on the Icelandic sources of the material and a survey of recent fictionalizations of the matter round out the book. The first section of the first chapter explores the different depictions of Christianization in the various medieval sources. The major texts are characterized in the last sentence of the section: "Groenlendinga Saga illustrates the peaceful displacement or modification of pagan by Christian custom, whereas Eiríks saga rauda keeps the two in competition with each other from beginning to end" (p. 10).

Edward R. Haymes
Cleveland State University