From Viking raiders to Mongol hordes, Frisian fishermen to Hanseatic hustlers, travelling as far west as America and as far east as Byzantium, we see how the life and traffic of the seas changed everything.ĭrawing on an astonishing breadth of learning and packed with human stories and revelations, this is the epic drama of how we came to be who we are. We see the arrival of the first politicians, artists, lawyers: citizens. We watch as the climate changed and coastlines shifted, people adapted and towns flourished. We see how plague terrorised even the rich and transformed daily life for the poor. We see the spread of money and how it paved the way for science.

In this dazzling historical adventure, we return to a time that is largely forgotten and watch as the modern world is born. With them they brought new tastes and technologies – books, clothes, manners, paintings and machines. The seafarers raided, ruined and killed, but they also settled and coupled. Boats carried food and raw materials, but also new ideas and information. The water was dangerous, but it was far easier than struggling over land so it was the sea that brought people together. We owe this transformation to the tides and storms of the North Sea. A thousand years later, it was the heart of global empires and the home of science, art, enlightenment and money. When the Roman Empire retreated, northern Europe was a barbarian outpost at the very edge of everything. This is a story of saints and spies, of fishermen and pirates, traders and marauders – and of how their wild and daring journeys across the North Sea built the world we know. Magnificent’ Jerry Brotton, author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps ‘An utterly beguiling journey into the dark ages of the north sea. Michael Pye’s The Edge of the World is an epic adventure: from the Vikings to the Enlightenment, from barbaric outpost to global centre, it tells the amazing story of northern Europe’s transformation by sea. Featured in New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2015

The edge of the world by michael pye