Benjamin J. Swenson, Author at THE HISTORY AVENUE

Author: Benjamin J. Swenson

Based in South Korea since 2008, Benjamin J. Swenson is a professor at Hoseo University in Asan. He holds a PhD from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, where his dissertation addressed nineteenth-century Euro-American military history. His hobbies include Viking sagas and chess.

Cnut the Great Reforges his Father’s North Sea Empire, 1014-1028 (Part II)

When King Sweyn Forkbeard suddenly died in early 1014 after becoming the first Danish King of England and first ruler of the North Sea Empire, his son Cnut (994-1035) had to overcome the forces working to dismantle what his father achieved through victory in battle and alliance with the Jomsvikings – a military order based on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea.

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Sweyn Forkbeard: First Danish King of England and the Alliance that Forged the North Sea Empire, 986-1014AD (Part I)

Sweyn Forkbeard (963-1014) – the ambitious son of King Harald Bluetooth – made an alliance with the Jomsvikings – a mercenary legion of warriors who lived on the southern shore of the Baltic coast. Legend has it the Jomsvikings – often called the Jomsborg Vikings – lived by a strict martial code that forbade capture in battle.

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“Beyond the Volok”: The Medieval Frontier and Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471 (Part Two)

Established as a republic in 1136, much of the history of Novgorod was written in the Old Russian Chronicle of Novgorod.

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“Beyond the Volok”: The Medieval Frontier and Chronicle of Novgorod, 1016-1471 (Part One)

In the centuries prior to Tsarist Russia’s rise to power the two principal centers connecting the Viking and Byzantine worlds were Novgorod and Kiev. Generally referred to as the Kievan Rus’ – the ascendancy of Novgorod within this loosely connected riverine federation stretching between the Dnieper River and Lake Ladoga’s tributaries to the Baltic Sea began during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise (c. 978-1054) – who became Grand Prince of Kiev in 1019 after ruling Novgorod and forming alliances with Scandinavian Vikings (Varangians).

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The Obits of William Walker, Filibustering President of Nicaragua

Born in 1824, Walker, who graduated summa cum laud at the age of fourteen from the University of Nashville, tried his hand at respectable professions such as medicine and law, but ended up as the embodiment of a mercenary movement to extend the realm of American empire south of the Mexican border.