Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness

This is a good book.3 stars because the cover on the bottom side of the spine was torn. Had to fix it with glue. Feeling too lazy to return it.Micheal Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead (The 13th Warrior starring Antonio Banderas) was a mashup of Ibn Fadlan's manuscript and the Beowulf saga. Ibn Fadlan's account of his journey is only about 60 pages long. Another 150 pages are reports by other Arab travellers, geographers and historians of medieval expeditions to the northlands. This edition has a lot of maps, a good bibliography for furthur reading, appendices and a glossary of Arab, Turkish words. Gog and Magog get the usual traditional treatment and are even represented on the medieval map on the cover.The scientific facts stated by the travellers are not accurate but these accounts give a keen insight into the social and cultural mores of people living in central-northern Europe in those times.Good for research as well as general reading.