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The Northern Isles: Orkney & Shetland, A. Fenton: Hardback: 1st Edition: Islands
The Northern Isles: Orkney & Shetland, A. Fenton: Hardback: 1st Edition: Islands
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The Northern Isles: Orkney & Shetland
By Alexander Fenton.
Published by John Donald, Edinburgh, 1978. First edition. Hardback cover with dust jacket (unclipped), 721 pages. Black & white illustrations and photographs throughout.
CONDITION
Overall good condition, see photos. No names or writing.
This new book is a major contribution to the developing subject of European ethnology. The Northern Isles were and are a cross roads of North Atlantic Europe and that is the context in which they are placed. The common factors and differences between Orkney and Shetland are charted against the competing influences of Scandinavia and Scotland.
The detailed study of the material culture is combined with thorough linguistic analysis. A result of years of study and the sifting of mass of a detail, the book is a synthesis rather than a survey. It illuminates the complexity of numerous interlocking factors and draws a picture not of the simple life, but a fascinating and varied existance
The past is revealed not as a static tableau but a process of continuous change, with subtle elisions of time
scale. Much of the material is new, based on field research by the author, on manuscript sources and on the knowledge freely imparted by many people from these islands by word of mouth and in note book form. As a result, there is much reappraisal of existing works and conventional viewpoints have often been amended
The book recreates the physical environment in which the people lived, the work with crops and beasts, the harvest of the sea, the houses, the food they ate. These things dominated their lives and form the background which is a key to the understanding of the character of the islands
The book is profusely illustrated with photographs, many previously unpublished.
(Bindery shelves)
